The prestigious Sainik School in Tilaiya has come under the scanner of Jharkhand High Court for alleged ragging incidents on the campus.

Taking cognisance of a report and video clipping published in a local Hindi daily that showed junior students being tortured by seniors, a division bench of the court instituted a PIL against the Koderma-based school on Monday. Observing that the “animal stag in the human body is not only living but also working shamelessly”, the court ordered a probe into the reported incident by HRD secretary B.K. Tripathy.

Tripathy will have to submit a report at the high court and identify students and members of the school administration, who had been a party to the inhumane ragging. The bench said that such barbaric acts should be condemned and the students should have revolted much earlier.

The court also directed advocate-general Anil Kumar Sinha to assist it.

The published video clipping in the Hindi daily shows a senior student flogging juniors with a leather belt after physical training. The younger students are seen crawling on the ground wearing house T-shirts and shorts.

The report also gives a personal account of Shankar Xalxo, a Class VIII student of the school and resident of Ranchi’s Karamtoli, who had alleged that the hostel was a torture chamber. The senior students would draw a lottery with the names of juniors and assign each one their daily chores. Any kind of resistance was rewarded with a thrashing, the paper quoted Shankar.

The boy, who went home during vacation, did not go back to school and is now working at his father’s tea stall.

The case will be again heard on November 21.