22-year-old student has been hospitalised in Kerala's Thrissur after alleged ragging.
Five students, accused of ragging their juniors at a government college in Kerala's Kottayam, have surrendered before the police a day after one of the students, who accused them of stripping and torturing him, was hospitalised in Thrissur with kidney malfunction. Four accused are still missing.
OS Avinash, a student of Kottayam's Government Polytechnic Institute, said he and eight other students were stripped, forced to drink liquor and made to do rigorous exercises for hours on the night of December 2.
"Nine of us were stripped naked. We were made to do somersaults and similar acrobatic for hours at a stretch. Even when some of us started falling down, they still didn't spare us. We were asked to pretend as if we were swimming on the floor. Some of us were locked inside a closet and made to sing aloud, all this continued for near five hours till early morning," Avinash told NDTV.
Another student, who was admitted to a hospital in Kochi after the incident, shared the similar details. He, however, did not want to be named.
Doctors say Avinash's kidneys were affected. "Because of the severity of the exertion, the myoglobin (an oxygen-binding protein like haemoglobin) produced by his body caused kidney failure," said Dr Abdul Shiji, General Manager of Mother Hospital in Thrissur.
He has undergone four rounds of dialysis and his condition is stable, he added.
Top sources from the polytechnic institute have told NDTV that on December 2 night, when the alleged incident occurred, the resident tutor was on leave. According to the Supreme Court guidelines, accommodations where freshers are accommodated should be carefully guarded by a warden. Also, the entry of seniors and outsiders shall be prohibited after specified hour of night to prevent such incidents.
"The institute has not responded to similar allegations in the past and that's why the victims did not feel safe in confiding them," said Arum Kumar, Avinash's cousin.
The polytechnic authorities have claimed that no complaint was made to them this time or even earlier. They have suspended eight accused student after the police informed them about the incident.