Ragging row: CMC principal lodges complaint with police

VELLORE: CMC Principal Solomon Satish Kumar lodged a complaint with the Bagayam police seeking action regarding the social media post about ragging in the college men’s hostel on Thursday.

Police said that the complaint “seems to be an attempt to just meet the demands of the law as no student’s name is mentioned.” It just states that police should initiate action regarding the social media post. The complaint stated that details of action taken by the college enquiry committee and the anti-ragging committee were both included.

It may be recalled that a social media post listed in detail the various forms of ragging which freshers were forced to undergo at the hands of seniors in the hostel.

When asked about the names of the suspended students, Solomon Satish Kumar said it would not be fair to divulge. “We are readying a summary to be released to the media,” he said and added that the next course of action by the CMC would depend on the police action.

However, this is not the first time that CMC hit the headlines for the wrong reasons. In November 2016, animal rights activists were enraged after reports of four students in the men’s hostel captured an 11-month-old female Bonnet Macaque monkey (a protected species) - which strayed into their room - with a blanket, took it to the terrace and in front of nearly 30 witnesses tortured and killed it. They buried the carcass on the campus. The post-mortem revealed that the animal’s hands and legs were tied, while its neck, knee and ankle were broken while a sharp rod was inserted into its anus.

This resulted in 4 students – Jasper Samuel Sahoo, Rohit Kumar Yenukotti, Arun Loui Sasi Kumar and Alex Chekalayil – being taken to the Bagayam police station for inquiry and later being booked under various sections of the 1972 Wildlife Protection Act. At that time too, the accused students were suspended after an internal inquiry.