Guardians of ragging accused asked to take CLCs of wards

Nayagarh: A day after three of its students were arrested by police on charges of ragging, the Divine Residential College here today shot off a letter to their guardians to collect the College Leaving Certificate (CLCs) and other documents of their wards.

"As your ward is indulged (sic) in indiscipline activities in torturing his roommates Nihar Ranjan Patnaik as reported by the hostel management and consequently FIR is lodged against your ward by the father of the tortured student in Nayagarh police station on 18/07/2016,studentship of your ward has been removed from our college. As per the direction of the director of Regional Director of Education, Bhubaneswar, CLC of your ward has been issued with an immediate effect", the letter read.

Following a directive from the Higher Education department, the principal of the private college had rusticated the erring students from the college yesterday.

"After registration of FIR, we had rusticated the three students from the hostel. Later, we rusticated them from the college too following the order of the Regional director of Higher Education department," College principal Kamalakanta Sahoo said.

Meanwhile, police have detained the accused students and started investigation following a complaint lodged by the victim’s father. A two-member team of the district Child protection unit has also interrogated them at the police station.

The trio will be produced in the juvenile justice board as they are all below 18. "The district administration has decided to send the three students to the juvenile home in Angul temporarily for reformation of their character," said Swadesh Mishra, member of Nayagarh juvenile justice board.

Higher Education minister Pradeep Panigrahi said that action will be taken against the minor accused as per law. "Our department has asked the concerned college to take action. As per the FIR of the victim's father, the accused students have been detained. Action will be taken against the three students as per law," he said.

The three studying in plus II science had tortured their roommate mentally and physically.

The victim, Nihar Patnaik, is now undergoing treatment at the District Headquarters Hospital here with injury marks all over his body.

The victim's father Himansu Bhushan, had lodged a complaint with police following which a case was registered against them under Sections 323, 324 and 504 of the IPC. He mentioned in the complaint that his son had been subjected to torture since the time he came to the hostel.

"The roommates used to thrash and kick my son, make him do sit-ups, scratch his thighs with hard combs, bite his body parts, punch his face and attack him with glass bottles. My son used to bear the brutal torture as the three students had warned him of dire consequences if he brought the matter to the notice of the college authorities," he said in the complaint.

The college authorities had tried to hush up the matter, he said.

"When I came to know about the plight of my son, I informed the college authorities. But they requested me to suppress it with a promise that they would take care of my son henceforth," the victim's father said.

The victim student said three roommates—Himanshu Sekhar Pradhan, Subha Swagatam Nayak and Nityananda Pal—used to torment him every day.

“These three students started torturing me regularly after the Raja festival. They would forcibly take the key of my suitcase and eat all my dry food. If I resisted, they would severely beat me up. They asked me to do sit-ups and also branded my body with mosquito repellent coil,” he said.