Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru

Bengaluru, December 29: Five final-year MBBS students who stripped a fresher from Scheduled Caste community have been arrested by Rajajinagar police.

The 19-year old victim from Maharashtra had joined the hostel in first week of August. He along with other juniors was constantly harassed by the five. The seniors forced juniors to wish them, bring them water, liquor, cigarettes and also forced them to not wear sweater during winter.

However, on December 24, the victim did not wish the seniors and things took an ugly turn. An argument broke out to which the victim responded strongly. As revenge, the seniors at around 10 pm barged into the victim’s room, abused him using foul language, slapped him and abused him and his family for being from lower caste. They took the victim to the terrace, stripped him and cut his hair.

The victim filed a complaint in the Rajajinagar police station, after which the five identified as Karan Sharma from Rajasthan, Gautham from Madhya Pradesh, Rahul Jha from New Delhi, Shubhav from Uttar Pradesh and Indrajith from Uttarakhand were arrested.

The police are yet to arrest three other batch mates of the accused. Those arrested were produced before the magistrate and remanded to judicial custody after interrogation.

According to Rajajinagar police, the five confessed that they ragged the student. CCTV footage obtained also revealed that ragging was taking place in the hostel premises.

The Rajajinagar police booked the accused under the Karnataka Education Act, SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and IPC Sections 341 (Punishment for wrongful restraint), 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation), 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and other sections.

RGHUS vice-chancellor Dr S Sachidananda has assured to conduct an internal inquiry and is waiting for a report from the police. The VC has ordered the principal to submit a report and the same will be submitted to Anti-ragging Cell, Delhi.