The Supreme Court has banned ragging in any form.

According to Ghaziabad police, the accused were booked under IPC Section 377 (sodomy) besides the Section pertaining to ragging. But the charge under Section 377 was removed after the victim’s medical examination.

The victim (name withheld) has complained that three fellow management students at IMT-Ghaziabad forced him to undress and threw lit matchsticks at his private parts in the campus on September 27. The Ghaziabad police initially refused to register his complaint, but finally lodged a case on Thursday (December 4) after intervention from the Ghaziabad SSP.

Prior to that, the victim had approached the PMO. Ghaziabad Superintendent of Police (SP) Vijay Bhushan said the youth had told him that the PMO had directed the Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary to get an FIR registered in the case.

According to the victim, the accused blamed him for asking too many questions in class. “They took me to a room in the institute when we were coming out of a symposium and told me to undress,” the victim has said in the complaint. Then they threw lit matchsticks at his private parts, the victim said — “I managed to save my face.”

The three accused — Ravi Shankar, a resident of Vadodara; Naveen Tomar, from Hisar; and Ajmer resident P C Gupta —have been sent to 14 days judicial custody.

The victim said the college authorities did not listen to his compliant. The police took his compliant but did not lodge an FIR, forcing him to approach the PMO.

The victim, a Gurgaon resident, said he met PMO officials on October 25. “They (officials) asked me to approach then Home Minister Shivraj Patil but then called me again on November 18 and issued a notice to UP’s Chief Secretary. The letter asked him to take action on my complaint,” he said.

“The section officer of Haryana Grievance Cell forwarded the complaint and asked me to inform them about development in the case every 15 days.” But the victim claimed Kavi Nagar Station House Officer (SHO) S K Bishnoi did not register a compliant even then. “He told me that it will take 90 days to register an FIR.”

The FIR was finally lodged by Kavi Nagar police on December 4 following Ghaziabad SSP L Ravi Kumar’s intervention after the victim approached him.

“I came to know about the issue on December 3 and asked the police to lodge an FIR,” SSP Ravi Kumar said. “The police officials in the district often take complaints without registering it formally. I will also start an investigation into the delay in lodging FIR by the SHO.”