Patna, July 22: The decision of Patna University (PU) authorities to prevent campus chaos this year has fallen flat at Patna College. Not only have back-to-back incidents of ragging marred the beginning of the session, the college authorities are yet to take any steps against the perpetrators of the unpleasant episodes.

Patna City superintendent of police Shivdeep Lande, along with other police officers, visited Patna College this afternoon. He interacted with the students and teachers on campus and enquired about their problems.

Sources said attendance was low today, as most of the new students, scared of being ragged, stayed away.

Lande also spoke to principal in-charge Jayanti Sircar and assured her that the police would extend full co-operation to the college authorities to maintain law and order on college campus. He also requested Sircar to get in touch with him if there was any incident of ragging, eve-teasing or clash on campus.

College authorities continued to make claims of their determination to prevent ragging but sources said little had been done to enforce it.

Patna College principal Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh had yesterday asked K.N. Paswan, the head of the geography department, to identify the students who were responsible for the ragging incident on July 20, 2011. Paswan, however, said he had not received any such direction.

On being asked what steps he had taken to identify the students responsible for the incident, Paswan said: “First of all, it was not an incident of ragging. It was a group clash. Also, I have not received any information or direction from the college principal to identify students who were involved in the incident. I came to know about the direction of the college principal from newspaper reports.”

On July 20, second-year students cornered one first-year geography department student Mithun Kumar Singh around 11.30am. They dragged Mithun outside the main entrance of the department and rained punches and kicks on him. Those present at the spot were too terrified to react, but later claimed it was a clear-cut case of ragging.

A group of Iqbal Hostel boarders yesterday assaulted a girl student of Patna College and her boy companion (her cousin) on the institution campus. The rowdy elements of the hostel first thrashed the boy assuming he was guilty of eve-teasing. When the girl student opposed, she too was beaten up.

Sources said the college authorities had tried to suppress Wednesday’s incidents. Neither the vice-chancellor (VC) nor any other university official was informed about the incident till late that evening.

VC Sudipto Adhikari told The Telegraph: “I came to know about it on Wednesday night after a student called up and informed me. After I learnt of the incident, I called Patna College principal but his mobile was switched off. Later I called K.N. Paswan who, too, did not have any information about the incident.”

Adhikari, too, refused to accept that it was a case of ragging. He said: “It was a group clash. The boy who was beaten up was seated in the teacher’s chair. His seniors objected to it. This snowballed into a clash.” The college has issued a notice asking all the students to come to the institute with their identity cards.