Death at Kolkata university puts spotlight on India’s illegal hazing rituals

Students have hit the streets to protest the death of a 17-year-old boy, alleged to be a victim of hazing at one of India’s top universities, as Alisha Rahaman Sarkar reports

Outrage in Kolkata, India, following university student’s death (Screengrab / India Today)

Protests have spread to the streets from the lush campus of one of India’s most prestigious universities after a young man was found dead in Kolkata, said to be a victim of “hazing” – a kind of initiation practice banned in the country over two decades ago.

The last time the 17-year-old student in the eastern state of West Bengal spoke to his mother was minutes before his death when he begged her to “take him away” from Kolkata’s Jadavpur University hostel, according to a report in The Quint.

The victim was found naked in front of the main hostel of the university on 9 August just before midnight, according to several media reports, having apparently fallen from an upper-storey balcony. He was rushed to the hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries the next day.

Nine men have been arrested and the incident has sparked a major political row in West Bengal, with the state’s leader blaming the incident on left-wing activists. “I spoke to the boy’s father and he said his son was being tortured for the past few days,” said chief minister Mamata Banerjee. “His father was planning to visit the hostel. The man said his son had been thrown from the building after being tortured… Who are these people? They are Marxists and Leftists.”

Angry students have taken to the streets in protest over the death of the teen who was allegedly subjected to hazing or “ragging” – a practice that sees first-year university students bullied and made to perform tasks by those in more senior years, and which India’s top court made illegal in 2001.

The teenager was an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in the Bengali language, and had moved to the hostel on 6 August. His family, which lives in the Nadia district bordering Bangladesh, claimed that their son was harassed by his seniors living at the hostel.

Despite ragging being banned by the Indian Supreme Court, many college students are still routinely subjected to harassment, with cases that ended in deaths repeatedly making national headlines.

Last month King George’s Medical University (KGMU) in Lucknow hired bouncers to protect female students from ragging. And last year, a court criticised the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, after a 23-year-old mechanical engineering student’s partly decomposed body was found in his room. His family later alleged that he was being hazed before his death.

The Independent spoke to former and current students of the university who alleged that "brutal ragging" was rampant in the hostel, where rooms are allocated to students at an annual fee of Rs 300 (£2.8).

The teenager's phone was "snatched", forcing him to borrow one from another student to make calls back home, the victim's mother alleged. He was reportedly heard shouting "I am not gay" repeatedly before the incident that ended with his death.

The minor's father has now submitted a police complaint in which he said he believed that some boarders of the hostel were responsible for his son's death, said Sankha Shubra Chakrabarty, joint commissioner of police.

Among the nine people arrested by the police include four university alumni residing at the hostel, who were allegedly present when the teen was found dead. Phones, laptops, diaries, and notebooks belonging to the suspects were seized on Wednesday, the public prosecutor said.

The Kolkata police have filed a case of murder and conspiracy against the suspects while probing possible sexual harassment. Dean of student affairs Rajat Ray and registrar Snehamanju Basu have been summoned to police headquarters.

The university has set up an inquiry committee to probe the incident and asked all former students “as well as outsiders” to vacate hostels meant for undergraduates.

"The hostel rooms are given to students who come from economically poor families and often have no one to turn to, despite that the seniors continue to harass the students. Every night for the first two weeks, I was made to complete certain tasks during the 'introduction' process, if I failed they would punish us," a second-year student told The Independent on condition of anonymity.

"I couldn't go anywhere else so I stayed. I was made to shave my head for mistakenly using English words while speaking to them," he added.

Arpan Majhi, a first-year student from Asansol district, shared his ordeal on Facebook.

"After the first two-three nights at the hostel, I am now looking for a mess [paid-for student accommodation] with great difficulty, even with a loan," he wrote. He alleged that a few "powerful elder brothers" continue to dominate the hostels.

"Asking for a specific haircut, having to check into the hostel by 6pm, constant demands by seniors, staying up all night to take the intro” were some of the reasons that drove him out of the hostel, he said. Senior students in college hostels are understood to use the word “introduction” to mask the practice of hazing.

A former student in his 30s, who now works in Chennai, said the harassment didn’t stop until he completed the first year of college. “I was forced to cut my hair very short. The local barbers call it ‘first-year cut’. We were always made to fetch alcohol and other things for the seniors.

“The situation was way messed up back then. Of course, there was no way to control what was happening and the authorities had no power to act on the complaints,” he added.

Students associated with the left wing and supporters of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) clashed at the university campus on Wednesday over the submission of a memorandum, while blaming each other for politicising the death.

The West Bengal government on Thursday said they have constituted a four-member fact-finding committee in connection with the teenager’s death.

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