On Tuesday, the NIT campus at Tadepalligudem in Andhra Pradesh witnessed strong protests by senior students against the administration’s decision to expel a student and suspend four others for allegedly assaulting a first-year student.
The agitating students threatened suicide if the decision taken by the administration against the senior students wasn’t rolled back.
The anti-ragging committee of the institute earlier on Tuesday issued orders to expel a senior B.Tech student, Guna Sai Prakash, and suspend four others for two years from college. Orders were also issued to suspend 10 students from hostel. The committee said that all these students were found guilty of beating up a first-year student in the first week of February. The four students who were suspended from the college were: Saketh, Srinivas, Nagesh and Vishnu.
The agitating senior students claimed that it wasn’t a case of ragging, but a clash between two groups.
Following the decision, over 300 senior students abstained from classes and demanded that the decision to be withdrawn at once. As the protests continued, the administration called in help from the police, who had a tough time convincing the students to withdraw the protests, reported The New Indian Express.
The protests continued till 6 pm, and finally the protest was called-off after the administration assured them that they will speak to higher officials and reduce the quantum of the punishment.
On February 2, a student, Mukul Kumar, hailing from Bihar was allegedly ragged and beaten by seniors. Following this, the first-year students protested demanding action against five of the seniors and 10 other students who were complicit in the crime.
The protests prompted the authorities to take action against Guna Sai Prakash, Sushanth Goel, Saketh, Prithviraj and Srinivas. The administration immediately suspended the aforementioned five students for two days, and asked the disciplinary committee to probe the incident. Notwithstanding the internal inquiry, the victim approached the police and filed cases against all the 15 students involved.