A shocking case of ragging has rocked a government Industrial Training Institute (ITI) in Madurai district, Tamil Nadu. On September 18, three older students stripped and brutally beat a 14-year-old first-year ITI student in the hostel at Chekkanoorani near Usilampatti. The attackers, aged 15 and 17, were also first-year students staying at the same Department of Kallar Reclamation hostel.
The boy, who hails from Varusanadu in Theni district and joined the ITI after completing Class VIII, captured the horrific assault on video by another student. The clip spread like wildfire online on September 23, sparking massive outrage across social media and beyond.
Police jumped into action after the boy’s father filed a complaint. They registered a case under the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Ragging Act, 1997, along with charges of assault and criminal intimidation. Officers detained the three juveniles for questioning. Madurai Superintendent of Police B.K. Arvind stressed that this was pure ragging—not caste-based violence—urging everyone to focus on curbing such abuses in hostels.
This incident highlights the ongoing nightmare of ragging in Tamil Nadu’s educational institutions, even with strict anti-ragging laws in place since 1997. Just this year, in early 2023, Madurai Medical College suspended second-year MBBS students for physically and verbally harassing freshers during hostel hours. An inquiry confirmed the bullying, drawing sharp criticism from health officials and student groups.
Ragging cases keep popping up. Back in 2020, a polytechnic student in Villupuram district ended up in the hospital after seniors forced him into humiliating acts. In 2013, seniors at a private engineering college in Salem stripped and beat a first-year student, igniting nationwide fury. And in 2009 alone, a Coimbatore engineering student suffered severe injuries from a hostel beating at SVS College, while a nursing student in Dharmapuri tried to take her own life after enduring constant ragging.
Child rights activists and education experts are sounding the alarm again. They demand tougher hostel monitoring, anonymous reporting systems, and widespread awareness drives to shield young students from this kind of violence. As ragging in Tamil Nadu continues to make headlines, it’s clear that enforcement needs a serious boost to protect the next generation.
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