New Delhi: The Himachal Pradesh Police on Thursday booked four students and a professor of a government degree college in Dharmshala on allegations of pushing a 19-year-old Dalit student to death by subjecting her to ragging, caste slurs, and sexual assault.
The FIR was filed days after the student died at a Ludhiana hospital on 26 December, a day after she was admitted.
According to the complaint, she first fell ill in September last year after she was subjected to ragging. The complaint says she was admitted to a hospital then as well, and returned later, but never really recovered. Her condition worsened on 25 December, when she was taken to the Ludhiana hospital.
On the complaint of the father, four students of Dharmshala’s Degree College—Harshita, Komolika, Akriti and Gauri—have been booked under sections 115(2) (voluntarily causing hurt) and 3(5) (common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita and section 3 of the Himachal Pradesh Educational Institutions (Prohibition of Ragging) Act, 2009.
The state police has also invoked section 75 (sexual harassment) of the BNS against professor Ashok Kumar, as the victim’s father accused him of sexually assaulting the second-year Bachelor of Arts student.
Professor Kumar has denied the allegations. “I was not teaching Geography in the second year and had only one communication with her in September, when she was arguing with another professor over allowing her admission into the second year while the results of her back papers were still pending,” Kumar told ThePrint over the phone.
In videos recorded before her death, the student also alleged she was subjected to caste slurs.
Northern Range Deputy Inspector General of Police Soumya Sambasivan said a team led by a deputy superintendent of police has been constituted to investigate the matter.
“A constitution of a medical board has been ordered, which will go through the treatment records of the victim since September, when the victim first fell ill, according to the father. The opinion on the medical board on the cause of the death would dictate the directions of the probe,” Soumya told ThePrint.
However, senior officials cited several factors complicating the investigation, such as the absence of a postmortem report or a medical report with the cause of death. They said these are mandatory requirements for a criminal investigation to proceed.
Meanwhile, the central regulatory body for higher education, the University Grants Commission, took cognisance of the matter and constituted a fact-finding team.
“UGC Anti-Ragging Helpline registered a suo-motu complaint based on media reports indicating the alleged suicide of a student at Government Degree College, Dharamsala, due to allegations of ragging. A police enquiry is underway. UGC has taken serious cognisance of the tragic death of the student and has constituted a Fact-Finding Committee to examine the incident. UGC assures that culprits will not be spared and stringent action will follow, as student safety remains paramount,” the UGC said in the statement.
Refusing to comment on the specific allegations against the students and the professor, Dharmshala College principal Rakesh Pathania said the victim did not take admission for the second year, and that she last came to the college in July. “All three students accused of ragging earlier belong to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes,” he told ThePrint. “There has been no complaint against Professor Kumar in the past.”
He said the college administration has handed over all records related to the deceased to the police and is cooperating in the investigation.
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Conversation with a nurse
In the police complaint he submitted on Thursday, the victim’s father said he was alerted about the incident of ragging and assault of his daughter when she called him in the afternoon of 18 September. He said he asked his son to bring his sister home.
In the FIR, a copy of which ThePrint has seen, the father has said he intended to confront the three students named by his daughter in September last year, one of whom allegedly put a knife to her daughter’s throat and chased her.
They planned to go to college on 19 September, but it was too late in the day, and the victim got a fever the next day as she kept crying the whole day after the incident of ragging, her father said in the police complaint.
The next day, the victim insisted on not returning to college, and asked to take admission in a computer course in Dharmshala town.
“I got her admitted there (computer centre), and after getting her admitted, I brought her back to my home. After coming home, (she) became somewhat upset and began saying strange things, including that ‘they would kill me, Papa’. On this, my family tried to console (her) a lot, but (her) condition did not improve. Seeing her poor health, I took (her) to a hospital,” the father said.
He has further documented that she was subsequently moved to at least four hospitals in the state, before being transferred to a private hospital in the Pathankot district of neighbouring Punjab.
It was at this hospital that the victim revealed the alleged sexual assaults by the professor named Ashok Kumar. In the recorded conversation between the nurse and the victim, the father recalled that she alleged that Ashok Kumar used to touch her inappropriately, pointing to her chest and private parts. She also named a fourth female student in the conversation.
As the victim’s conditions improved, she came back home, where she further narrated the assault, including the chopping of her hair and an attack on her head with bottles.
As her conditions worsened again, the family rushed her to a private hospital in Ludhiana on 25 December, from where she was referred to the city’s Dayanand Medical College and Hospital, where she was declared dead on arrival.
“After recovering from the shock of (her) death, I remembered that during her illness, (she) had told me that Harshita had harassed her along with the above-mentioned girls in the form of ragging in college and had even cut her hair,” the father complained to the police.
“Thus, Harshita, Akriti, Komolika, and Gauri have committed the crime of harassing my daughter in the form of ragging, and Professor Ashok Kumar working in Dharamshala College has committed the crime of obscene act, which I could not inform the police earlier due to my daughter’s shock and illness. Today, I have informed the police. Legal action should be taken against the above five persons,” he further submitted before the police.
‘No sexual assault complaint initially’
Kangra Superintendent of Police Ashok Rattan said the victim’s father had first complained of ragging through the chief minister helpline on 20th December. But, there were no allegations related to sexual assault.
“The matter reported on the 20th through the CM helpline, when we investigated it, sexual harassment allegations were not included in that. However, we are not denying any allegations at this time, and as facts emerge from the inquiry, we will take cognisance of them and take appropriate action. The investigation will be conducted on a day-to-day basis,” Kangra SP Ashok Rattan told the press Friday.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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