If you are a first-year girl MBBS student at the Nalanda Medical College (NMC), you must ensure that when you step into the college your hair is well-oiled and tied into two braids, that you have bangles on your wrists and a khadi bag on your shoulders. This is the instruction seniors are issuing to the new students of the premier medical college in the city.

The father of a girl student has complained to the college administration that his daughter is being forced to abide by her seniors' diktats on dressing.

The NMC administration, however, is viewing what is clearly a case of ragging as a bit of good-natured fun.

'What we have learnt is that some senior students are issuing such instructions to the first-year students,' said NMC principal Shiv Kumari Prasad. 'This happens in almost every medical college here wherein seniors issue such instructions to first-year medical students. The idea is only to bring a uniformity.'

A first-year male MBBS student of the college said the dress code diktat was not limited to just female students.

'We have been asked to wear orange shirts and coffee-coloured pants,' the student said under cover of anonymity for obvious reasons.

'We also have to wear a tie along with this and have to come clean shaven. The dress code has to be obeyed. However, we have been given time to embrace the dress code. If we have genuine reasons not to implement it, we can get away from the scolding of our seniors. Today when I was asked why I didn't abide by the dress code, I told my seniors that I had yet not been able to arrange my dress; they let me off easily.'

Another first-year male MBBS student said: 'Some of the seniors are putting pressure on us to abide by the dress code. Some students may not be able to handle the pressure and they may not be able to convince the seniors in their own way.'

However, another first-year female MBBS student said she didn't find anything wrong in the dress code.

'In my earlier college in Haryana, I had to abide by a certain dress code. I don't find anything wrong in it,' she said.

This is not the first ragging incident reported in NMC. In January this year, a first-year student had submitted a written complaint against seven second-year students saying that they not only ragged him but also cut his hair forcefully. Instead of reporting the matter to the college's anti-ragging cell, the student had reported it to the Medical Council of India (MCI) through an email after which the MCI sent a letter to the NMC to conduct a probe into the incident at the earliest and lodge an FIR against the accused students in the police station concerned if the allegations were found to be true.

The first-year student had later refused to recognise his alleged tormentors before the anti-ragging committee. He, however, had also not taken back his ragging complaint.

The NMC administration has decided not to report the dress code incident to the MCI.

'The college's anti-ragging committee has not got any complaint or evidence regarding ragging,' said NMC principal Prasad. 'So, the matter is not going to be reported to the MCI. The anti-ragging committee's number has been painted in various nooks and corner of the college.'

According to the Prevention and Prohibition of Ragging in Medical Colleges/ Institutions, Regulations 2009 of the MCI, it can impose an exemplary fine of Rs 1 lakh for each incident of ragging on the erring medical college/institution. The MCI can declare such institution as not having minimum academic standards.