Thiruvananthapuram: The All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has issued new guidelines against ragging for the new academic session. It extended the scope of ragging by including in it physical or mental abuse on grounds of colour, race, religion, caste, ethnicity, gender including transgender, sexual orientation, appearance, nationality, regional origins, linguistic identity and place of birth, place of residence or economic background.
Engineering students can be expelled for mocking at the caste, ethnicity or sexual orientation of college mates. Though the AICTE had issued strong directives earlier, ragging was rampant in many colleges with seniors verbally abusing and often manhandling freshers. Some students have died or ended their lives unable to bear the pressure.
The new notification defined ragging as “any act of physical or mental abuse (including bullying and exclusion) targeted at another student (fresher or otherwise) on the above grounds. The guilty can be suspended from classes for a certain period and expelled from the college. If expelled, the student will become ineligible for engineering admission in any part of the country.
