Now, shrinks to counsel freshers on ragging menace

HYDERABAD: Reacting to the two cases of ragging related deaths in the state over the past few days, Osmania University College of Engineering has decided to get psychologists to counsel freshers in order to curb incidents such as these apart from asking the police to patrol the campus.
"We have decided to ask our Department of Psychology to conduct seminars and counsel the first-year students who may have some problems adjusting and are perhaps facing certain problems.In addition to this, we will also have police patrolling in the evening to send a strong signal regarding the seriousness of this issue," says Prof A Venugopal Reddy principal of Osmania University College of Engineering.
"We have even constituted special squads which visit college building and hostels, especially at night to conduct random checks. Two such checks have even resulted in students being caught and dismissed from the hostel for ragging," says Prof Reddy. He claims that ragging has reduced and apart from "a few stray incidents" city colleges are insulated from this menace.
However, others do not seem to be following this lead and are not coming up with any special measures to curb the menace. Most university officials say several anti-ragging measures that have been implemented successfully from the beginning of the academic session and insist that cases of ragging have decreased drastically in the past year.
JNTU officials say that principals of all JNTU affiliated colleges had met in the beginning of the academic term in August wherein provisions of the AP Anti Ragging Act and the punishment was explained. "It was also decided that each principal would form an anti-ragging committee in each college consisting of senior students, teaching staff and non-teaching staff in order to curb this problem. Our college in Kukatpally has also asked its students to sign an undertaking saying that they are aware of the anti-ragging bill and the consequences of flouting it," says JNTU registrar K Lalkishore.
In order to step up awareness, colleges have also displayed posters, distributed brochures and conducted anti-ragging rallies and some have even enlisted police assistance to dissuade students from ragging, say officials. The AP State Council of Higher Education has screened anti-ragging videos and films in colleges. In certain colleges senior students are often asked to mentor their juniors to develop a certain level comfort.
"Ragging is a grave problem and if a complaint is lodged it can lead to a criminal case where the student may be expelled from college and even jailed," says Lalkishore.