Ragging victim goes missing

Suri, May 13: A first-year polytechnic student who had allegedly been the target of seniors in ragging is missing since Friday night.
Some first and second-year students of Ramakrishna Shilpa Vidyapith told the Birbhum police chief today that Sarojit Biswas used to be ragged regularly at the hostel.
“The gave me a written complaint. We are probing the charge,” superintendent S.S. Panda said.
The 20-year-old from Thakurnagar, North 24-Parganas, had joined the three-year civil engineering course last June.
He was not seen at the hostel after dinner on Friday. A missing case was started yesterday on the basis of a complaint lodged by hostel superintendent Aditya Dutta.
A Suri officer said the 33 students who met Panda this afternoon gave a list of “tortures” inflicted on Sarojit by his seniors but refused to disclose their identities.
“He was asked to inhale cigarette smoke. When he refused, he was beaten up and scalded with cigarette butts,” a first-year student was quoted as saying.
Sarojit’s elder brother Bipan, who arrived here yesterday, said. “My brother had told me that six seniors were after him. I have every reason to believe that he fled the hostel to escape ragging.”
Panda said Sarojit had been “depressed” since faring poorly in the first semester examination held in January.
His cousin Pankaj, a first-year electrical engineering student in the college, said he was in a state of shock and refused to comment. “You better ask my elder brother (Bipan) about it,” he said.
The hostel superintendent said no student had reported earlier that Sarojit was being ragged. “Our complaint box is empty. Sarojit was depressed after he failed in three subjects in the semester exam,” Dutta added.
Abhijit Das, a third-ye- ar civil engineering student who is the hostel monitor, noticed during a routine check at 10.30 pm on Friday that Sarojit was missing.

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