KHARAGPUR: IIT-Kharagpur has started "night vigil" by several hundred faculty members at student hostels.This, along with steps to beef up hostel security, night checks by the deans and associate deans at late hours in students' hostels and a separate e-mail for ragging complaints by students, are among the measures IIT has announced to curb instances of ragging on its campus.After the death of a third-year student in October 2022, the institute has received another ragging complaint on November 8 from UGC's anti-ragging helpline which it has immediately forwarded to Kharagpur (Town) PS for probe.For the Autumn 2023 semester, IIT has also uploaded a 19-pager on "Guidelines for Complaints and their Redressal Mechanism" which has been sent to all 16,000 students detailing among others, what constitutes ragging and its consequences.
This also highlights where a victim can lodge their complaints.On ragging, the institute in its advisory to the students said, "Highest priority will be given to e-mails which are sent from institute mail ID and have the details of the student who is making the complaint.
The identity of a student, who has made allegation about ragging, will be kept strictly confidential at all times." It also advised students "not to make any false complaint on ragging".
In a statement on Friday, IIT said it has filed an FIR within 24 hours after it learnt of a ragging plaint on UGC's portal.
IIT said, "The complaint was anonymous and did not reveal the identity of the student(s), halls of residence etc.
To gather more information, the Dean of Student Affairs communicated to all the students about the complaint by an e-mail on November 8 2023, seeking their help in gathering information about the incident.
In the e-mail, the dean requested the concerned student(s) to contact him in confidence by replying to the e-mail or by calling the dean directly..."IIT also said a separate e-mail for filing any ragging complaint (antiragging@iitkgp.ac.in) is also available for filing any complaint by the students.