bhopal

Updated: Jan 10, 2016 09:02 IST

A group of B Tech first-year students at a prestigious institute in Bhopal have accused their seniors of forcing them to watch pornography and imitate the acts for ‘ragging’.

The matter, raised by a group of male students of the Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT), came to light on Saturday when they lodged a complaint on the national anti-ragging helpline, which in turn informed the institute.

The complainants, whose number could not be ascertained by HT, are mainly from Andhra Pradesh. All five senior students – four from B Tech second year and one from third year – named in the complaint are from Andhra Pradesh as well.

According to the complaint, the ragging – a series of usually demeaning or insulting activities that freshers are made to do – has been on for the last few months. Ragging has been outlawed after instances of humiliated students killing themselves.

The seniors allegedly call the juniors to their hostel rooms, forcibly show them porn movies and ask them to imitate the acts, the complainants said.

Some junior students who didn’t want to be named told HT that the accused habitually ragged students.

“Junior students are very disturbed with their activities in the hostel. Earlier too, complaints were lodged against them, but the management didn’t take strict action against them. This encouraged them further to continue ragging inside the campus,” a first year student said.

The junior students said they had given a bunch of 150 ragging-related complaints against the same seniors a few months ago to in-charge director MM Malik, but nothing happened. However, Malik told HT he didn’t receive any such complaint.

MANIT director Appu Kuttan just said they had received a complaint and were looking into it.