Ragging begins in schools

Sridhar would have understood the Antos family’s tragedy if he hadn’t lost his sanity after being savagely beaten and thrown off a train by school bullies.

Sridhar, 22, was a Class X student of the National School in Tambaram, Chennai, five years ago. He abruptly stopped going to school one day and would lock himself up in his room and not talk to anyone.

He left home after lunch one day and was found hours later in a hospital with a hand cut off. It was then that his family came to know that Sridhar had stopped school because he feared bullies who ragged him every day.

The day he was found in the hospital the school bullies had caught him near a railway station and beat him up after pulling him inside a train. When the train started moving, the bullies threw him out and Sridhar fell on the tracks unconscious.

Thirty minutes later Sridhar woke up to find his hand ripped off and a train speeding towards him. He was bleeding but managed to pick himself and walk to a station. Doctors later found that he had lost hearing in one ear too.

Sridhar lost his mind after that day. A promising young man now mumbles: "I don't like my name; Manoj is my name. Tamil has destroyed me—Spanish, Italian all good. They laugh at Tamil” and keeps asking his grandmother what happened to his arm.

Any mention of school or books gets him agitated. "I don't want to go to school, don't like it," he says.

Sridhar’s tormentors fled Chennai after that day and the police has now closed the file. His grandparents, who look after him, are old and unaware that their grandson is severely traumatised.

Indu and Sridhar’s tormentors were young but psychologists have long warned that ragging or vindictive behaviour is becoming common in schools.

“There is no age for this. We have got cases where the ragger was eight,” says psychologist Aruna Broota.