Price they pay for good education

An engineering student of Jalpaiguri Engineering College in West Bengal was allegedly beaten up all night by his seniors for hesitating to s...

An engineering student of Jalpaiguri Engineering College in West Bengal was allegedly beaten up all night by his seniors for hesitating to strip before them.

Saindeep Bandhopadhya was being ragged on Tuesday and was beaten with iron rods and cycle chains and he received injuries on his back, throat and hands. The victim, who’s admitted in Jalpaiguri hospital, was ‘even knifed’ by some senior students before they let him off. Four of the seniors, who were arrested on FIR, were suspended and are in 14-day custody now.

According to the FIR, the four students had also forced him to put his signature on a note stating that he had committed suicide after ‘‘family trouble’’ and no one was responsible for that.

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Taking serious note of the incident, Higher Education Minister Satyasadhan Chakraborty assured that his department ‘‘is going to invoke anti-ragging laws against the culprits’’.’’

He said a special team of senior officials has been told to visit the college to see if there is any ‘‘negligence’’ by the college authority which led to ‘this kind of inhuman treatment’’.

A similar incident in the Jalpaiguri Engineering College way back in 1999 had forced the government to enact anti-ragging laws which empower the college and university authorities to take stringent measures against culprits. The punishment includes, besides imprisonment for two years, expulsion and fine of Rs 5,000.

ATKT rules crack them up, 3 Nagpur engg students die

Vivek Deshpande
Nagpur, August 7:

The Nagpur University is mired in a major controversy. Three first-year engineering students from private institutions have committed suicide over the past 15 days, the latest being today, after failing to sail into the next academic session due to stringent ATKT (allowed to keep term) rules.

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Sourabh Mukhopadhyaya, a resident of 24 Pargana district in West Bengal, was the first to end his life under a train on July 24, followed by Dolly Dhamani hanging herself at her residence in Dhantoli area. Today, Parthojit Bannerji, hailing from Dhanbad, followed suit at the college hostel. Banerjee was in third year but wasn’t able to clear some previous years’ papers.

Irate students blame it on new ATKT rules being applied from this year which require them to clear seven of the nine theory papers and four of the six practicals. Till last year, only 50 per cent subjects were required to be cleared. As a result, most of the 65 per cent failed students, mostly from private institutions, were unable to go through to the next year.

Led by Sena leader Umakant Agnihotri, they gheraoed Vice-Chancellor Arun Satputaley last week and demanded reversion to the old rule. Satputaley maintains the rules are based on recommendation by a special committee which in turn has based its decision on recommendation by the All India Council of Technical Education. ‘‘We have referred it back to the Chancellor,’’ he said.

Agnihotri says he is taking some 1,000 students tomorrow to Mumbai to meet Uddhav Thackeray . ‘‘The earlier rule was suddenly changed, making things difficult for the students,’’ he says.