A shocking case of ragging has come to the fore from a hostel at the North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) campus in Meghalaya’s Tura where a student from Nagaland was allegedly subjected to abuse by seniors.
According to initial reports, the ragging was also communal in nature. The incident reportedly took place on October 8 at around 1:30 am past midnight. The victim, a student of the department of Agri Business Management in NEHU, had come to the campus for his first day.
While at the Arabella Boys’ Hostel, he was subjected to inhuman treatment and abuse at the hands of seniors who knocked on his dorm room and subsequently took him to an empty room in the hostel.
In shocking details that has emerged following the incident, it has been reported that the seniors flashed lights at his face so that they could not be identified. They ordered him to introduce himself in Hindi and when they were not satisfied with his fluency, told him to “entertain” everyone by performing a “naked dance” as he was a Naga. The victim could only identify that the harassers from their fluent Hindi.
The victim was then threatened into stripping in front of them, as his pleas fell on deaf ears. Recounting the horrors, he said that the perpetrators may have recorded a video of the incident on their phones as well. The seniors went on to warn him of serious consequences when he could not take the torture anymore and broke down before them.
The next morning, the victim of the tragic ragging incident left the hostel campus and returned back to Nagaland where he lodged a formal complaint in connection with the matter. In the aftermath of that, the Naga Students’ Union (NSU) in Shillong wrote to the vice chancellor of NEHU Prof Prabha Shankar Shukla and asked him to take immediate action and ensure justice for the victim within 24 hours.
The concerned authority should take legal actions and file an FIR, facilitate the victim student to transfer to another central university of the same course, implement stringent disciplinary actions against the perpetrators in accordance with the university’s anti ragging policies and pertinent laws, expel perpetrators from the university, transparent communication from the university and that NEHU should align with the UGC’s regulations on curbing ragging to bolster community building endeavours, with a special focus on every incoming freshers, the NSU said.
The president of the student body, Chiran Shimrah said, “Such an undisciplined and heinous incident has brought a great shame to the student’s community and should never be encouraged elsewhere.”
Furthermore, he said that if the university failed to take actions, then the union will call for strikes and boycotts against NEHU.
