Kerala Student Allegedly Stripped, Tortured By Seniors, Now On Dialysis

Thrissur: A 22-year-old student has been hospitalised in Kerala's Thrissur with kidney malfunction after alleged ragging at a polytechnic. Another student has been admitted at a hospital in Kochi. OS Avinash, a student of Kottayam's Government Polytechnic Institute, said he and eight other students were stripped and made to do rigorous exercises for more than five hours on the night of December 2.

Police have arrested five of the nine accused this morning. 

Doctors say Avinash's kidneys had been affected. "Because of the severity of the exertion, the myoglobin (an oxygen-binding protein like haemoglobin) produced by his body caused kidney failure," said Dr Abdul Shiji, General Manager of Mother Hospital in Thrissur.

The student has already undergone four rounds of dialysis and his condition is much better, he added.
 "Nine of us were stripped naked," Mr Avinash told NDTV. "We were made to do somersaults and similar acrobatics for hours at a stretch. When some of us started falling down, they still didn't let us go. We were asked to pretend swimming in the floor. Some of us were locked inside a closet and made to sing aloud... all this for around 5 hours till early morning."

He returned home to Thrissur, was extremely sick, and had to be hospitalised. His father came to know of the ragging from his friends on December 15 and the next day a case was filed with the police.

Mr Avinash comes from a Dalit family, which has a small income. "I have a minor job. I can't sustain medical expenses. The accused must be punished and this should not be repeated," said his father OP Sivadasan.

All nine of the accused seniors are missing, the police said. "We have searched their houses," a senior officer of Kottayam police, Ajith, told NDTV.  The police have filed a case of attempt to murder, ragging and under the SC and ST Act. (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.