Rajkot: After seven resident doctors of its orthopaedics department were booked for ragging on Saturday, Bhavnagar Government Medical College was on Monday informed of another complaint alleging harassment of junior students, this time in its gynaecology department.The University Grants Commission (UGC) told the college that it had received an online complaint from a woman student, alleging harassment by five or six senior students.The allegation is that the seniors demanded money for food and imposed punishments such as making juniors write a sentence 100 times.The college began an inquiry through its anti-ragging mechanism. Speaking to reporters, college dean Dr Chinmay Shah said the institution was not given the identity of the complainant.“We received the communication from the UGC and convened a meeting of our internal anti-ragging squad on Monday. All 10 first-year students of the department were interviewed. They denied facing any kind of harassment,” Shah said.He added that the students were spoken to together and individually, but no one reported any ragging.Shah said it may be that the student who lodged the complaint on the UGC portal was not comfortable divulging information during the inquiry process.“We have warned senior students against any such activity and emphasized the recent action against students from the orthopaedics department. We have also tried to dismantle the hierarchy system to reduce the risk of such harassment,” he said.The college first submitted its preliminary report to the UGC, which directed it to a meeting of the anti-ragging committee, which has representatives from outside the college, including parents and students.The committee met on Tuesday, but no student came forward with allegations against senior students.College authorities also directed heads of departments and faculty members to remain vigilant and promptly address complaints of ragging.6 orthopaedics medicos served notices, one abscondingSix of the seven students booked for allegedly subjecting 13 first-year medical students of the orthopaedics department to severe physical and mental harassment were detained by police on Tuesday. Deepak Unadkat, iolice inspector of Nilambaug police station, said the students were produced before the mamlatdar and released after being served notices. The notices direct the accused students to cooperate with the investigation and appear before police whenever required.
