Cops serve ragging antidote with helpline - Every district in Assam to make police control room number available to students in distress

ANTI-RAGGING Illustration: Onkar Nath Bhattacharyya

Guwahati, June 22: Assam police have joined hands with students to tackle the menace of ragging in colleges and universities in the state.

The police will launch anti-ragging helplines in every district headquarters where students and their parents can lodge complaints against ragging on their campus once the new academic session begins next month.

B.M. Rajkhowa, additional inspector-general of police (law & order) dashed off a letter mentioning the telephone numbers of police control rooms of different districts to the Assam state unit of National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) on Wednesday. The police control room numbers will function as the anti-ragging helpline round-the-clock.

Partha Pratim Bora, president of the state unit of NSUI who formally received the letter on Thursday, expressed gratitude to the Assam police for its gesture. “The NSUI had a series of meetings with the top brass of the Assam police, including the DGP, Jayanto N. Choudhury on how to enforce the Supreme Court’s ban on ragging in educational institutions. We have been informed by the police that students can lodge FIRs against ragging by making calls to the helpline numbers,” he said.

There are reports and allegations of ragging in Cotton College, Gauhati University, Dibrugarh University, Assam Medical College and Hospital, Dibrugarh, Assam Engineering Institute and many other institutions soon after the academic session starts in July every year. Several junior students have had to leave leading institutions in the state due to rampant ragging.

The Supreme Court has defined ragging as “any disorderly conduct whether by words spoken or written or by an act which has effect of teasing, treating or handling with rudeness” any junior student.

The UGC also made it mandatory in 2008 for colleges across the country to initiate effective measures, including taking help from police, to prevent ragging on campuses.

Bora said while students across the state could call 100 to centrally lodge FIR or complaint with the police against ragging, those in different colleges can call the police control room numbers in their respective districts. The helpline numbers are 03762320018 for Jorhat, 03732329067 (Dibrugarh), 03774280224 (Golaghat), 03671272594 (Karbi Anglong), 03772223012 (Sivasagar) and 03742332100 (Tinsukia).

He said the NSUI would put up billboards and banners at colleges and universities, exhorting students not to engage in ragging. The colleges were also asked to set up anti-ragging squads. Bora said the NSUI is also in touch with Delhi University authorities to prevent ragging on any student in the state.