Indore (Madhya Pradesh)
Boarding facilities of DAVV are nothing less than concentration camps for juniors as they have to undergo ragging on a daily basis even as the university authorities pose a blind eye to the menace.
Months after hostels were opened owing to a slump in Covid-19 cases, incidents of ragging have once again started taking place in boarding facilities of DAVV.
When they were unable to bear the mental and physical harassment anymore, a group of inmates of Ravindra Nath Tagore Hostel lodged a complaint against around 20 senior hostellers mentioning their names.
In their compliant, the junior students claimed that they were being ragging by the seniors in the hostel regularly. “We are being given tasks. If we don’t do those tasks then we are harassed and mistreated. We are also not provided with good food at hostel mess on refusal to do tasks assigned by senior hostellers,” the complaint reads.
Junior hostellers, who are reportedly from second year of their courses, also claimed that they were forced into work during 'Prayash' event held in March.
Sources told Free Press that a parallel management system is being run by senior students who have formed a group named 'batch-in'.
The batch-in group members call all the shots in the hostel, they added.
The sources also said that the G-Wing of the hostel has been reserved by 'batch-in group' members for themselves.
“If any junior is allocated a room in G-Wing then seniors force him to vacate the room,” the complaint said.
It states that the senior students without any reason call their juniors for 'meetings' in G-Wing clad in a special dress.
"Juniors are publicly shamed if they do not follow the dress code,” the complaint adds.
Addressing senior students as sir and wishing 'good morning, good evening,' whenever they cross a senior is a must, the complaint added.
Complaint not handed over to an anti-ragging committee
Chief warden GL Prajapati said that he had received the complaint about four days ago. “An internal committee was formed to probe into the complaint,” he said. When asked if the anti-ragging committee was forwarded the complaint, he said the matter would be handed over to the anti-ragging committee for investigation on Monday.
As per UGC norms, the anti-ragging committee has to be handed over the ragging complaint immediately after receiving it. Prajapati said that the senior students whose names featured in the complaint will be transferred to another hostel.
