Now, torture in the name of ragging in school

KOCHI: Ragging has always been a headache for parents with college-going  children. Now, the menace seems to have crossed borders — from colleges to schools in the state — with certain ragging incidents being reported from some of the posh schools in the district.In the latest incident, two students underwent unbearable torture in the name of ragging at a CBSE school in Tripunithura. Unable to bear the torture, the students had to leave the school. “My son, Sachin S, joined the school in Tripunithura in Class IX from one of the schools belonging to the same management. The former school had   classes only up to VIII,” said Sadanandan, Sachin’s father. “When he joined the school, the senior students started to taunt him. They asked him to sing obscene songs and narrate how he was born. Then they asked him to remove his clothes. When he hesitated they started assaulting him,” he said. “Not only my son but many other students had the same fate. When the boy reported the incident to his class teacher, the seniors attacked him again. Only when he fell sick we came to know about the whole incident,” Sadanandan said.Ben Joseph, another student of Class IX who reported the attack on Sachin to the teachers, was also brutally attacked. Then the parents filed a complaint before the school authorities who posted the hearing on the complaint to another day. At least four of the senior students are around 20 years old, he said.  Meanwhile, Sachin and Ben informed the school authorities that they will be attacked again. They never went out of their class, not even to the toilet, fearing the attack. Two teachers were even asked to accompany these students. But Ben was once again brutally attacked inside the toilet by the seniors. The parents said that the school authorities failed to take any action against the students after the reconciliation talks between the parents of the senior students and the complainants failed. So the parents of Sachin and Ben filed complaints before the police. “We are yet to go through the complaint,” City Police Commissioner M K Ajith Kumar said.The school authorities denied the reports of ragging. “It was only a scuffle between the students. We conducted an enquiry into the incident within two days and have sent a report to the police station concerned,”  said the director of the school.