Secunderabad's Gandhi Medical College on 11 September suspended five 2021-batch and five 2022-batch students on charges of ragging.
Ten MBBS "second and third year" students were suspended for an year by the Secunderbad's Gandhi Medical College on Tuesday, 11 September. (Creative Commons)
A total of 10 second-year and third-year students of the MBBS course were suspended for a year by the Gandhi Medical College in Secunderabad in Telangana on Monday, 11 September, after they were allegedly found indulging in ragging activities.
The first-year students, who were ragged, reportedly reached out to the University Grants Commission through its anti-ragging portal.
Telangana’s Director of Medical Education (DME) Dr Ramesh Reddy told South First on Tuesday, “Ragging in any form, whether mental or physical, whether big or minute, will not be tolerated. Therefore, the question of the extent of ragging doesn’t matter.”
He added that the suspended students should be happy that they were just losing a year. “They should be happy they weren’t rusticated from the college,” Reddy said.
According to sources, the ragging of the junior students happened over the weekend gone by.
The Gandhi Medical College on Tuesday said its anti-ragging committee inquired into the incident and found five students from the 2021 batch and five from the 2022 batch involved in ragging.
Asserting that there was no physical abuse, the DME said, “Even verbal abuse is ragging. If someone makes you stand in their room for half an hour, that also is ragging. Any kind of degrading is ragging. Even if the student feels psychologically hurt by what the senior says, it is ragging.”
He added that the National Medical Council (NMC) and the Telangana government were very serious about ragging.
“All our students also are well aware of the regulations. If some students, in spite of that, want to indulge in such activities for their sadistic pleasure, there is no compromise,” Reddy said.
The Gandhi Medical College (GMC) received the complaint from the UGC on 8 September. “Due to holidays and the non-availability of a few people involved, the meeting and investigation took place yesterday,” said Reddy on Tuesday.
He added: “All the students in various medical colleges are warned that if anyone indulges in ragging, the action will be very firm as per anti-ragging rules. We have zero tolerance for ragging.”
The National Medical Commission, in June this year, directed medical colleges to respond in a timely manner to complaints of harassment and ragging by issuing a notice.
“All the colleges are directed to comply with the Prevention and Prohibition of Ragging in Medical Colleges and Institutions, Regulations 2021 and submit a compliance report as per the attached format to this commission at the earliest and latest by 30 June, 2023. The report for the period ending 31 March, 2023, should include all the complaints received after UG and PG admission of 2021 and 2022 batch,” the NMC reportedly said.
Medical students can visit the NMC website (nmc.org.in) and lodge complaints of ragging.
Meanwhile, neither the college nor the students lodged a complaint with the police.
“This seems more an internal matter of the college. We have not received any complaint so far,” Chilkalguda Station House Officer (SHO) Mattam Raju Sarikonda told South First.
Meanwhile, a Gandhi Medical College postgraduate student told South First, ” There are many definitions of ragging. As far as we know, this was more like an interaction between seniors and juniors, and suddenly the next day those the seniors got to know that a complaint of ragging had been lodged against them.”
The student claimed that the incident might be seen as ragging by the college administration as they were interacting with junior students after 9 pm.
“In educational institutions in Telangana, a 9 pm deadline is followed as an unsaid rule,” the student said.
On 22 February this year, the alleged suicide of Dr Dharawat Preethi, who was a postgraduate junior doctor of the Kakatiya Medical College, rocked the medical fraternity and led to a furore across the country.
Warangal Commissioner of Police (CP) AV Ranganath told reporters back then that there was apparently targeted harassment of Preethi by one Dr MA Saif, which could have driven her to attempt suicide.
While Saif was arrested on 23 February for the woman’s attempted suicide, Preethi died on 26 February at the NIMS Hospital in Hyderabad.
The suspension of Dr Saif, who was released on bail granted by a Warangal court on 20 April, by Kakatiya Medical College was revoked by the Telangana High Court on Tuesday.
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