Cigarette torture by seniors - Boy thrashed for an hour

Pallab Banerjee at the Malda Medical College and Hospital. Pic:Surajit Roy

TT, Malda, Dec. 11: A first-year student of Gour College in Malda has alleged that three of his seniors forced him to drink liquor, swallow some pills, then burnt his skin with cigarette butts and thrashed him for over an hour on the campus yesterday.

Pallab Banerjee, 19, was admitted to the Malda Medical College and Hospital, where doctors said he could be discharged tomorrow.

Physician Sandip Chakrabarty said there were some burn marks on "his stomach and thighs".

This is the second incident of ragging and torture in a month. On December 4 in Haldia, a first-year engineering student was allegedly kidnapped by his seniors, stabbed and thrown out of a moving car because he had filed a complaint of ragging earlier against some seniors.

Yesterday, Gour College was shut as the convocation of Gour Banga University was being held there. Pallab said he went to the college to collect his ID card.

"I went around 2pm to collect my identity card. I did not know the college was closed. There were three seniors standing near the college gate. I do not know their names. They dragged me into an empty classroom. They stubbed lit cigarettes on my chest, stomach and legs.... They forced me to drink alcohol and swallow some pills," he said.

Pallab said the torture did not end there. He was taken outside the building and beaten up near a thicket. "They left me there when it started getting dark. I managed to call few friends from my cellphone. They came on their bikes and took me home," said Pallab, who has enrolled to study Sanskrit.

Pallab stays with his widowed mother, a municipal employee, in Malda town. His sister, Srabani Chatterjee, lodged a complaint of ragging with Malda police yesterday night against unknown persons.

Principal Niranjan Mridha said the incident had not happened on the campus. "As far as I know, the incident took place outside the college. The boy has not complained to us formally but we will help the police in the investigation. As he is our student, our anti-ragging committee will also look into the matter," he said.

Gour Banga University vice-chancellor Gopal Chandra Misra visited Pallab at the hospital today. "The incident is shocking. We will send a team to the college and conduct an inquiry," he said.

No arrests have been made. Shantanu Maitra, the inspector in charge of Old Malda police station, said he had visited the college around 1pm today. "I did not find any evidence that people had been consuming liquor there," he said.