Made to strip, beaten brutally: Inside CMC Vellore's ragging horror

CHENNAI: An internal probe has been launched after a first-year MBBS student at the Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, posted a video documenting the horrifying acts of ragging at the institution. On social media, screenshots of a now-deleted video post are currently trending. The post discusses how senior students at CMC brutally and inhumanely handled freshmen.

A junior student, who was subjected to the ragging, told the media persons at Vellore in Tamil Nadu that they were subjected to physical and sexual abuse.

The victim revealed in the post that freshmen were made to strip off in front of the warden, deputy warden, and a few doctors who served as the judges at the Junior Mr Men's Hostel competition on October 9.

The same day, it is said that students were made to partake in a "walking race" in which they were required to imitate sexual actions with both the ground and their fellow batch members. The students were forced to wander the hostel in their underpants while being doused with fire hydrant water. Images of the incident making the rounds on Twitter show students escaping the fire hydrant's water spray while they are still in their undies.

The post claims that ragging took many different forms, including "buzzing," which refers to beating freshers in the testicles with hockey sticks and bottles till they bleed excessively and cause major injury.

Freshers were made to learn the full names, and hometowns of the senior students and were being physically abused if failed to answer.

The post refers to the "Jupiter watch" as another type of ragging, in which new students were taken to the hostel's top floor and held upside down by their legs. Freshmen would often receive slaps for insignificant offences. It was common to practise for juniors to be naked before seniors, with private parts barely covered by a piece of cardboard, the post stated.

In addition to being verbally tortured with critical remarks, freshmen were also required to seek seniors' permission before eating each time they entered the mess.

The post and videos describing the ragging of the students were tweeted by a doctor and that went viral leading to the management taking action against the seven senior MBBS students.