Bengaluru: A 19-year-old freshman was allegedly ragged and assaulted by students belonging to upper castes in Bengaluru on the night of December 24.
Saurabh Tupe (19), a resident of the ESIC Medical College Boys Hostel is the victim who ragged by his seniors. Karan Sharma, Indrajeet, Rahul Jha, Shubhav and Gautam who were drinking as it was Christmas Eve later allegedly barged into Saurabh’s room while he was asleep.
“I woke up when someone slapped me across the face. It was Karan. He held the collar of my shirt and dragged me out of bed. My seniors then dragged me to the hostel’s terrace and began hurling abuses at me. They called me a child molester and words that I could not even repeat,” said Saurabh.
“They shaved a part of my hair. They made me strip and they were laughing at my body and passing really bad comments about me. After Karan shaved my head, he told me that Dalits are not meant to study MBBS and become doctors. He said that people of my kind were only meant to do menial jobs for the upper caste,” he added.
“In the morning, they came to my room again and threatened to kill me if I spoke about the incident to anyone. I was so worried but I finally decided to tell the police. On December 25 at around 10 pm, I went to the Rajajinagar Police Station and filed a complaint,” Saurabh said.
Saurabh alleges that Karan, Rahul, Shubhav, Gautam and Indrajeet, who were also residents of the hostel, and they would rag him and hurl casteist slurs at him.
Saurabh said that ever since he joined the college in June this year, the accused were always ragging him. Initially, they made fun of all juniors and he thought it was normal. But later he realized that they were only targeting him because he was a Dalit.
The accused, Karan, Indrajeet, Rahul, Shubhav and Gautam, who were detained by the police on Thursday night, December 27, were produced before the court on Friday, December 28 and remanded to judicial custody.
An FIR under sections 341 (wrongful restraint), 506 (criminal intimidation), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 34 (common intention of the IPC), section 116 (penalty for ragging) of the Karnataka Education Act 1983, section 3(1)(x) (intentionally insults or intimidates with intent to humiliate a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe in any place within public view) of the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, were registered against the accused by the Rajajinagar Police.
