Kolkata: On the evening of 9 August 2023, 18-year-old Swapnadip Kundu, a Bengali Honours first-year student at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, was found lying naked by his fellow hostel residents: bleeding, unconscious and—as it emerged—dying, in front of his university hostel building.
Kundu, the son of a cooperative bank employee, had multiple fractures in his pelvis, skull and ribs, along with internal bleeding and bruises consistent with assault, according to the preliminary post-mortem report.
The post-mortem report said Kundu had suffered a “fall from height”.
Kolkata police said he had been a target of ragging.
He was an idealistic young man who idolised former President A P J Abdul Kalam and 20th-century reformer Swami Vivekananda and wanted to be a social worker, his father, Ramprasad Kundu, told Article 14.
Kundu had moved into the hostel only four days before he was allegedly ragged.
He succumbed to his injuries in a hospital early on 10 August, a few hours after he was found.
Kundu is one of 51 college students who died in ragging-related incidents between 2022 and 2024, according to the “State of Ragging in India, 2022-24” report, published in March 2025 by the Delhi-based anti-ragging organisation Society Against Violence in Education (SAVE).
The report found 14 ragging-related deaths had taken place in 2022, 17 in 2023 and 20 in 2024.
Kundu had been summoned by his seniors to a nearby room—according to Kolkata police investigators—where he was allegedly forced to undress, NDTV reported in August 2023.
Kundu tried to escape and attempted to lock himself inside another room, but failed.
Kundu was chased from one room to another by a group of seniors who allegedly hurled homophobic slurs at him, said the police, as reported by The Indian Express.
Some hostel residents later told police that he kept saying he was not gay while they mocked him.
A third-year civil engineering student told police he saw Kundu run past him and tried to stop him, but failed, The Telegraph reported.
According to other students, Kundu was panic-stricken and was wearing only a towel as he repeatedly went to the toilet, said joint commissioner (crime) Sankha Shubhra Chakrabarty.
Another student informed the dean of students, Rajat Ray, that Kundu had been threatened and appeared mentally disturbed.
A Decade & More Of Distress
Kundu’s death is the latest in a national epidemic of ragging, or hazing, a form of ragging targeting new students on their admission.
According to the University Grants Commission (UGC) 2009 guidelines, ragging refers to “any disorderly conduct, whether by words spoken or written or by an act, [that] has the effect of teasing, treating, or handling with rudeness a fresher or a junior student”.
In the 2024 academic year, the UGC anti-ragging helpline received 1,086 complaints, a 12.7% increase over the previous year, despite the existence of anti-ragging laws, helplines, committees, and Supreme Court orders (in 2001, 2007 and 2025) spanning over 24 years.
Between 2015 and 2024, 8,184 cases were registered at the UGC anti-ragging helpline, but many cases are not reported to the helpline, said experts.
According to data gathered from the UGC anti-ragging website, 576 complaints of ragging were recorded in 2015. The number rose to 608 in 2016 and then to 921 in 2017. This upward trend continued in 2018 with 1,039 reported cases, a 12.8% increase.
In 2019, the number of ragging cases registered on the UGC website peaked at 1,115.
In 2020, complaints of ragging declined by 79.7% to 226, largely attributed to the closure of campuses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As institutions reopened in 2021, complaints rose to 546—a 141.6% increase over the previous year.
The number continued to rise in 2022, reaching 1,103 complaints, followed by a drop to 964 in 2023.
“This is not to say that the entire India registered just over 3,000 ragging complaints in 3 years—these are just the complaints registered using the national anti-ragging helpline,” Gaurav Singhal, vice president of SAVE, told Article 14, referring to the UGC website anti-ragging figures.
“There is a huge number of complaints that are registered directly to the colleges, and also directly to the police if the case is serious,” said Singhal. “All such cases fail to get reflected in the numbers available at the anti-ragging helpline.”
‘A Piece Of My Heart Is Gone’
On the same day that Kundu died, the university established an internal committee to investigate. According to the committee’s preliminary findings, Kundu was ragged by a group of students and recent graduates.
The committee also found that both senior and junior students locked the hostel gate and held four general body meetings after Kundu fell from the third floor.
The police arrested 13 students in the case.
To Kundu’s father, Ramprasad Kundu, who spoke from his home in Bagula, in West Bengal’s Nadia District, on 1 May 2025, the institutional findings meant little.
“It was a murder. A piece of my heart is gone,” said Ramprasad Kundu. “We have lost everything. He used to say, ‘Papa, my name will shine in the world one day.’”
“He didn’t go there to end his life,” Kundu’s father said. “Those who ragged him knew that once he spoke to us about the ragging, the truth would come out. That’s why they decided to kill him.”
A Welcome Turns Deadly
According to SAVE’s March 2025 report, medical students account for just 1.1% of the student population in India, but medical colleges reported 1,219, or 38.6%, of the 3,153 complaints registered.
Of these, 295 were from just five universities: Madhya Pradesh Medical Science University in Jabalpur, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical University in Lucknow, Maharashtra University of Health Sciences in Nashik, Rajasthan University of Health Sciences in Jaipur, and West Bengal University of Health Sciences in Kolkata.
In November 2024, Anil Methaniya, an 18-year-old student at the Gujarat Medical Education and Research Society Dharpur Medical College and Hospital in Patan district in north Gujarat, died, allegedly of heart failure after being made to stand for three hours continuously while he was being ragged.
Per the FIR, early on 17 November, first-year and second-year students had gathered in the common room on the second floor of Block B in the boys’ hostel, The India Express reported in December 2024.
The seniors allegedly turned a “fresher’s welcome” into a nightmare, forcing Methaniya to stand for over three hours while being humiliated with insults, reported India Today.
Methaniya was the youngest of three siblings.
He was expected to return home soon to help with preparations for his elder sister Nidhi Methaniya’s wedding, scheduled in February 2025. But he never got the chance to see her again.
More than five months later, the forensic postmortem confirmed that trauma and shock led to a fatal cardiac arrest.
Investigating officer P J Solanki said a chargesheet was filed in March, detailing how senior students had misbehaved with and assaulted their juniors, including Methaniya, The Times of India reported.
The college’s anti-ragging committee collected testimony from 26 witnesses, and after completing its inquiry, a First Information Report (FIR) was filed on 18 November.
At least 15 students were charged under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023, including sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 127(2) (wrongful confinement), 189(2) (unlawful assembly), 190 (responsibility of members of unlawful assembly), and 296(b) (obscene acts and songs).
‘Our Family Has Been Shattered’
Sandeep Methaniya, his cousin, told Article 14 that all 15 students had admitted to ragging during the college’s inquiry.
He said the Gujarat High Court granted bail to three of them in April 2025, and the Patan Sessions Court extended bail to 11 others soon after.
One student is still in jail, with his bail plea pending and likely to be granted soon. The Sessions Court last heard the case on 4 June, when the hearing was deferred to a later date.
“No one dies like this. Anil was very strong,” Gautam Methaniya, another of Methaniya’s cousins, told Article 14.
“Anil told me, ‘I want to become a doctor.’ No one from our family or village had ever become one,” said Gautam Methaniya, recalling a conversation with Methaniya after he had cleared class 10. “He wanted to serve the village.”
The family still has unanswered questions.
Gautam Methaniya said, “The first thing our lawyer asked was—how did the seniors get the key to the common room?”
“The government must act,” said Gautam Methaniya. “Just like it responded strongly to Pakistan recently, it must take strict steps here too, so that no other child has to suffer this again.”
“Anil once told me, ‘Bhaila (brother), I will score well.’ And he proved it by scoring 550 marks in his NEET first attempt,” said Gautam, breaking down as he spoke. “Our family has been shattered.”
The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), India’s medical entrance exam, is scored out of 720, and 550 is considered a competitive score.
In A Medical College
A*, a first-year medical student studying in a college based in Rajasthan, described to Article 14, on condition of anonymity, what he endured during his ragging from mid-October 2024 to March 2025.
“I was forced to strip down to my underwear, blow condoms like balloons, and simulate sex with walls, the floor, and other batchmates,” said A.
“The seniors made us kiss each other indirectly by placing our hands between our mouths and asking us to kiss each other.”
“During ‘intro sessions’, the seniors used to scream into my ears if I made mistakes and forced me to sit in the murga (chicken) position for several minutes,” said A.
A said each ragging session lasted two to three hours.
According to A, the seniors justified the abuse by saying it was meant to prepare him for the pressures of the medical profession.
“Teachers and patients will abuse you daily. We are preparing you to handle it,” A quoted his seniors as saying. “In practical exams, you’ll need to remove your clothes anyway. That’s why we’re getting you used to being naked.”
However, A said he had a hard time even registering his complaint, let alone getting it resolved. “I tried my best to complain, but nothing worked,” he said.
A said both the anti-ragging helpline and the college administration refused to register his complaint and told him his complaint was “anonymous and its validity can’t be checked”, as he lacked solid proof.
“Later, somehow the complaint was registered on the website in December 2024—probably due to an NGO’s efforts,” A added. However, he said, after nearly two months of trying, he gave up.
“The administration doesn't like it when a complaint is registered since it brings down their image,” said A, and added that he feared complaining about the administration could lead to them failing him in retaliation.
Laws Vs Reality
In addition to the 2009 UGC guidelines to curb ragging, that apply to all institutions of higher education nationwide, 12 states and one union territory—including Tripura (The Tripura Educational Institutions (Prevention of Ragging) Act, 1990), Uttar Pradesh (The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Ragging in Educational Institutions Act, 2010), Kerala (The Kerala Prohibition of Ragging Act, 1998), Jammu & Kashmir (The Jammu and Kashmir Prohibition of Ragging Act, 2011)—have their own anti-ragging laws.
Yet, implementation remains inconsistent.
According to the UGC guidelines, students are required to submit an affidavit each academic year stating that they will not engage in ragging, but RTI data from the last decade revealed that only 4.49% of students have complied with this requirement.
On 9 June 2025 UGC issued a show cause notice to 89 universities for non-compliance with the 2009 anti-ragging regulations.
Justice for victims is often delayed, and families often believe that the accused should not be granted bail.
In its 2001 judgment in Vishwa Jagrati Mission Through President vs Central Government Through Cabinet Secretary And Others, the Supreme Court banned ragging across the country.
Five years later, in 2006, the ministry of human resource development appointed a committee led by RK Raghavan, former director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), to suggest means and methods to prevent ragging, and action to be taken against people that indulge in ragging and institutions that fail to curb ragging.
The committee submitted its report in 2007 and described ragging as an act of “human rights abuse”. It further stated that the guidelines issued in the 2001 Supreme Court judgment hadn’t been implemented by the colleges yet.
In 2009, UGC formalised the guidelines issued by the Raghavan Committee and adopted them, under the title “Curbing the Menace of Ragging in Higher Educational Institutions”.
The guidelines specified that educational institutions should set up anti-ragging committees that would include the head of the institution, representatives of faculty members, parents, students belonging to the freshers’ category as well as seniors, and non-teaching staff.
The anti-ragging committees are required to investigate any complaints of ragging and to ensure compliance with the provisions of the regulations as well as the provisions of any law for the time being in force concerning ragging; investigate complaints and also, monitor and oversee the performance of the Anti-Ragging Squad in prevention of ragging in the institution.
According to clause 7 of the regulations, if the anti-ragging squad recommends, or if any information is received regarding a reported incident of ragging, the head of the institution shall immediately assess whether the incident constitutes an offence under applicable penal laws.
If it does, the head of the institution, either directly or through a member of the anti-ragging committee authorised for this purpose, must file a FIR with the police and local authorities under the relevant legal provisions, within twenty-four hours of receiving such recommendation or information.
More recently, on 24 April 2025, the Supreme Court allowed the UGC to notify the draft regulations 2025, which address ragging, sexual harassment, and discrimination based on caste, gender, disability, and other biases in institutions of higher learning.
This came while hearing the public interest litigations filed by the mothers of Rohith Vemula—a PhD scholar with the Centre for Knowledge, Culture and Innovation Studies, University of Hyderabad—and Dr. Payal Tadvi—a second-year medical student of Gynaecology and Obstetrics—who lost their lives due to caste discrimination at their respective institutions.
Following the deaths of two students at IIT Delhi in 2023, the Supreme Court formed a National Task Force (NTF) in March 2025 to address the mental health concerns of students and prevent suicides in higher education institutions.
The task force has held three meetings until now, the most recent being on 24 April. The NTF's recommendations have yet to be released.
Impunity For Killers
While data reveal a steady rise in reported ragging cases, very few result in FIRs.
In 2013, only nine FIRs were filed based on the 646 complaints received by the UGC (1.39% of cases). This number increased to 6.14% in 2014, with 57 FIRs filed based on 927 complaints.
According to the UGC annual report 2023-24, 967 complaints of ragging were recorded by the national anti-ragging helpline during 2023-24. Of this, 870 complaints had been “disposed off” while 97 complaints were still active.
Even in cases where students have died and charges have been filed, the consequences for the accused have often been limited or temporary; those charged were either released early or granted bail despite serious allegations, highlighting gaps in accountability and justice.
Aman Kachroo, 19, was beaten to death by seniors at Dr. Rajendra Prasad Medical College in Tanda, Himachal Pradesh, in 2009.
Witnesses said that Kachroo sustained serious injuries to his chest, ears and face from the severe beatings.
The four accused students were found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, house-trespass, assault or wrongful restraint. They were released in 2013 after four years of imprisonment and resumed their studies.
“Aman used to tell us about ragging, but we never imagined it was this serious,” his aunt, Indira Dhar, told The Times of India. “The first-year students had recently reported the issue to the college administration, but nothing was done to stop it. We’ve lost our son, but if action is taken in time, many others can be saved.”
Kachroo dreamt of starting a hospital in Tanzania—where he spent part of his childhood—providing free medical care to the poor.
“Accountability lies with the teachers and the principal, not the students, because they represent a system that has failed,” Kachroo’s father, professor Rajendra Kachroo, told Article 14.
“The government and the UGC are unwilling to look at the issue deeply, because that would mean examining their roles. The core question is about the condition of our institutions.”
“Students who engage in ragging are not criminals. They are young, educated individuals who are unaware of the consequences,” he added. “It is the institution that creates the conditions for this behaviour."
On 18 February 2024, JS Sidharthan, a second-year veterinary student at Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University in Wayanad district of northern Kerala, died by suicide.
According to the police report, he had been repeatedly ragged, forced to strip, and subjected to physical and mental abuse over several weeks, reported The News Minute.
The CBI, which took over the case, charged 19 students with ragging and abetment to suicide after it concluded that repeated assault and humiliation by fellow students led to his death.
But in May 2024, the Kerala High Court granted bail to all 19 accused. The court said there was not enough evidence to show that the students directly caused or encouraged Sidharthan’s death.
A 2017 psychosocial study commissioned by the UGC among 10,632 students across 37 colleges and universities revealed that 84% of students reported not complaining about ragging, often due to fear of retaliation or concerns about the impact on their careers.
The study, carried out under a Supreme Court-mandated committee, revealed that about 40% of students had experienced some form of ragging, with 4.1% describing it as severe.
“I almost cried when I was called (by seniors) for the first time,” said A. “The experience was haunting at first, but I later got used to it.”
“However, during the early phase, I barely left the room due to fear of the seniors,” A added.
Singhal, of anti-ragging organisation SAVE, suggested a solution that, according to him, could drastically reduce the menace of ragging.
He said, “We may end 90% of the ragging in just one year if we use technology smartly and directly connect the parents of the juniors with those of the seniors.”
Singhal was of the opinion that sharing the phone numbers of the parents of the perpetrator with the victim and their families would help hold them accountable and work as a deterrent.
“Parental monitoring will magically do what the police, courts, and the principals have not been able to do in the last 5–6 decades,” Singhal claimed.
Back in West Bengal, Ramprasad Kundu waits for justice that seems painfully slow.
“I want justice,” he said. “I have faith in the judiciary and believe we will get justice, but everything is moving very slowly.”
While 15 arrests have been made and inquiries continue, the case has not yet reached a legal conclusion. All the accused are currently in jail.
“The last hearing was held on 2 May 2025, in which the hostel superintendent, Tapan Jana, was questioned; however, he experienced chest pain, leading to an adjournment of the proceedings,” said Ramprasad Kundu.
“There’s only one hearing a month. I don’t know when this case will end,” said Ramprasad Kundu.
“What we have lost is beyond recovery. We will carry this pain for the rest of our lives. No other father should have to lose his son at the hands of a ragger.”
*Name changed on request
(Raashid Andrabi is a Srinagar-based journalist who writes on political, societal, and environmental matters, and Rishab Gaur is an independent journalist based in Delhi.)
Link to Raashid Andrabi’s author's page: https://article-14.com/author/raashid-andrabi--654805beb5ee3
Link to Rishab Gaur’s author's page: https://article-14.com/author/rishab-gaur-68085e3543d00 )
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