17 Mar : With the brutal death of young medical student Aman Kachroo shocking the nation, a movement is gradually gaining momentum in cyberspace to make ragging a punishable offence under Indian Penal Code.
An online petition hosted by stopragging.org, appealing to the Prime Minister to amend the IPC to make ragging an offence, has received nearly 200 signatures within three days of its opening, with outraged netizens slamming the so-called "tradition" of harassing and assaulting freshers.
The Supreme Court has clearly laid down directives to launch criminal prosecution in cases of ragging, but the IPC does not have a separate section specifying it as an offence.
Kachroo, a 19-year-old first-year medical student from Gurgaon, died allegedly due to severe thrashing during ragging by his seniors at a government medical college in Tanda in Himachal Pradesh on 8th March.
"While this is a murder case, matters would not have reached this level had Aman been able to use an anti-ragging law to approach the police," the petition argued. It also demanded that all the 50 recommendations of the R K Raghavan Committee on ragging should be seriously looked into by the Central government.
The organisers say they will collect signatures till 7th May before posting the letter.