Polytechnic freshers confront authorities

KANPUR : Thirty six hours after a first year student committed suicide at the state polytechnic, many junior students have spoken up about the ragging they have been enduring for long at the hands of seniors.

They confronted faculty members who were passing off the suicide of Abhishek Sharma as an extreme step taken due to his own problems.

Several students on Tuesday met the polytechnic principal RK Singh informing him that they were being harassed for the last two weeks and Sharma committed suicide owing to ragging.

When Singh refused to believe them, many students took off their caps to show him their tonsured heads, said sources familiar with the issue.

Sharma, they said, was under immense pressure after seniors humiliated him multiple times on the staircase as others laughed at him. The student was found hanging in his hostel room late on Sunday night.

In their meeting with the principal, the students said that they did not report the matter as the seniors had threatened them with dire consequences.

“Abhishek’s step forced us to tell our story; there are many of us who are under immense mental duress,” they said.

Defending the tonsuring, a teacher said that senior students have made a tradition that juniors will have no hair or short hair and they would only wear slippers. This was not ragging, the teacher said.