Telangana ranks second for reporting sexual ragging cases

Hyderabad: According to the recent reports released by the University Grants Commission on Wednesday, Telangana ranks second after Karnataka, throughout India, with 11 percent of students reporting sexual ragging by their seniors in higher educational institutions as compared to a national average of 4 percent ragging in other states.
Four-member committee has conducted the study- ‘Psychosocial study of ragging in selected educational institutions in India’.
Nearly 10,632 students from 37 colleges/ universities from the country participated in the study which revealed junior students or fresher’s in the state are subjected to two kinds of sexual ragging – stripping and sodomy, which is most common among male students living in hostels or students who are enrolled in professional courses like engineering, medical, nursing and hotel management..
The study read, “The highest percentage of ragging involving stripping was reported from a private nursing college in Telangana (10.4 per cent). Most common forms of sexual ragging are asking students to enact sexual scenes or narrating stories with sexual content.”
Other states like Maharashtra, West Bengal and UP reported lesser percentage when compared to Telangana and Karnataka.
A ragging case reported in 2016 from Hyderabad’s Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, is the recent one according to the findings.
In Telangana, students are basically ragged on their region, religion, language, economic background and as well as with their rural/urban backgrounds.
The report stated, “This could be because ragging has been severe but not as widespread in the institution, or that mild forms of harassment have not been seen as ragging. It is also possible that atmosphere of fear and intimidation experienced by freshers’ in some colleges has an adverse impact even though they have not been ragged.”
The students and professors have also admitted to lack of gender sensitivity on the campuses but claimed the figures as an exaggeration.
Reacting to the report, JNTU student leader Javvaji Dileep said, “We cannot deny that ragging is prevalent, however, sexual ragging cases are much fewer when compared to other forms of ragging like beating, burdening them with assignments etc.”