AP: 5 students arrested for ragging, sodomy

Five engineering students, who were arrested for sexually abusing a junior student at Rajam in Srikakulam district, have been remanded to judicial custody till September 21.

According to Circle Inspector of Police (Rajam) K Tirumala Rao, six senior students, all boys, of GMR Information Technology Institute, Rajam, allegedly sexually assaulted two second year students of mechanical engineering and subjected them to humiliation, including videographing of the unnatural act. Five of the accused were arrested for ragging under the provisions of Andhra Pradesh Prevention of Ragging Act, 1997 and for indulging in unnatural acts (sodomy) under section 377 of Indian Penal Code.

Three students D Vijay Bhaskar Rao, Tirupati Ramesh and Santosh called a classmate who resides in an adjoining room to Anjani complex near the institute on Monday night and asked him to perform oral sex on Bhaskar Rao and beat him up when he refused. They made him clean the room till dawn on Tuesday.

Bhaskar Rao and three other students Talapaka Ravi, Yerraiah Babu and B B Krishna Chaitanya then called in another classmate on Tuesday night and warned him of dire consequences if he did not perform oral sex on Ravi.  The latter succumbed to the threats. Another student was coerced into filming the unnatural act with his cellular phone camera.

The victim left for his hometown, Visakhapatnam, hours after the incident while the boy who was forced to film the incident lodged a complaint at Rajam police station. A police team led by Palakonda Deputy Superintendent of Police P V Krishnaiah raided the complex on Wednesday. The police seized the cellphone used for filming the incident.

Using the images for identifying the accused and their crimes, they arrested five students while the sixth one escaped. The arrested were produced in the court on Thursday and remanded to judicial custody till September 21.

The college authorities promptly suspended the accused students who belonged to second, third and fourth year of the engineering course. They all hailed from well-to-do families. Three of the students had been detained in the third year after they failed in the examinations.

Meanwhile, Technical Education Minister Pinnamaneni Venkateswara Rao has ordered an inquiry into the incident.