About a dozen senior students at the S.V. Ayurveda College in Tirupati, run by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), brutally attacked three juniors on Friday night with iron rods, cricket bats and stumps. They also burnt them with cigarettes.
Sources said that the three juniors, Jagadish, Yashwant and Mallikarjun, of Room No. 42 of Dhanwanthi Hostel were ragged and physically assaulted by the seniors following an altercation during mess hours.
While some faculty members apparently asked the students not to lodge a complaint with the police, they went ahead and approached the Alipiri police who inquired into the incident and took some of the seniors into custody, though no arrests have been officially shown. Following this the police booked cases against 12 students under anti-ragging acts of the IPC.
The injured junior students were sent to the nearby SVRR Government Hospital, where they were released after treatment.
Meanwhile, the ragging incident took a twist with another student of the junior stream, Hameed, complaining against four seniors.
Ms Kalyani, a senior TTD official deputed by the higher authorities, rushed to the college on Saturday morning and inquired into the incident. She termed the campus disturbance as an act of ragging and said that she would submit a report to TTD executive officer L.V. Subramanyam after a thorough inquiry.
Alipiri station CI Rajasekhar said that a team of police personnel had been stationed at the college hostel. He added that relevant cases for ragging and physical assault had been filed against the 12 seniors and their parents had been informed.
The seniors involved were identified as Yuga-ndhar, Kishore, Balakrish-na, Ramesh, Bhasker Goud, Dileep, Jayachandra, Mukham Basha, Mahesh, Siva, Akshay and Suresh.
TTD EO Subramanyam, meanwhile said that he would initiate action against the seniors if they were found guilty of ragging.