Several residents of RG Kar Medical College’s hostel in Maniktala filed a complaint of “ragging”, “mental torture”, “harassment” and “intimidation” against 13 senior students on Wednesday.
The complaint, which was forwarded to the Amherst Street police station by the superintendent of the hostel, named the accused students who were medical interns, final-year students, former students and house staff of the hospital.
The complaint mentions that the accused entered the hostel around 3 am on Wednesday.
“They started banging our doors and did not stop till we opened the door of our room”. They entered our room forcefully and started to subject us to intense mental torture and ragging,” it reads.
“Two of our hostel mates were locked in a room from inside (room no xx) and continuously ragged them for around 2 and a half hours. We are being threatened for our career and life,” the complaint read. (The room number is not mentioned to protect the identity of the alleged victims)
“A case been recorded against the accused for wrongful restraint, criminal intimidation and common intention and under sections of the West Bengal Prohibition of Ragging in Educational Institution Act, 2000,” said Shankha Shubhra Chakrabarty, joint commissioner (crime) of the city police.
Swapan Mondal, the superintendent of the Maniktala hostel, said he was alerted by security guards about 20 minutes after the senior students entered the hostel.
Mondal said that usually first and second-year MBBS students stay in the hostels situated outside the hospital premises, including the one in Maniktala. Senior students are shifted to the hostel on the hospital campus.
“I went up and asked the outsiders to leave. Most of them are residents of the main hostel on the hospital campus. They were in the Maniktala hostel for around 30 minutes,” he said.
Sources in the hospital linked the visit of the accused to the Maniktala hostel over the transfer of the principal of the medical college.
Some students are opposed to the transfer. Sources said the accused went to the hostel to put pressure on the students to join the protests against the transfer.