City engg college student falls victim to ‘ragging’

WARANGAL: The ragging menace in educational institutions claimed yet another life with 17-year-old Vadlakonda Sainath, a student of CMR Engineering College at Medchal in Hyderabad, committing suicide on a railway track near Kazipet in Warangal district on Monday night.
A suicide note in his wallet read 'Please stop ragging - no one should face similar insulting incidents as faced by me'.Warangal police have taken possession of the note and shifted the student's decapitated body to the local MGM Hospital for post-mortem.Sainath's headless body was found by villagers at Waddepally near Kazipet railway junction. His head was found some distance away on a parallel track.
Sainath's parents, Kanakaiah and Aruna rushed to Warangal from their hometown Mancherial in Adilabad. They told reporters that their son never mentioned about ragging at college.
"He (Sainath) may have been ashamed to talk about it. Had we known about what he was going through, we would have spoken to the college management and ensured that my son was alive today," Kanakaiah said.
AISF and TGVP activists gathered at the hospital and alleged that the college management refused to take note of complaints of ragging against senior students. Protestors also alleged that the deceased had lodged a complaint with the college principal but to no avail. They demanded that the government cancel the college's recognition.
V Sainath joined CMR on August 5 and since then has been staying at Sai Ritish boys' hostel at Kompally, with three other first year engineering students. On Friday, he went to his elder sister Anusha's house at Borabanda for Rakhi and returned to the hostel on Sunday.
Saying that he was not well, Sainath did not go to college on Monday. His last call was to Anusha at 2.20 pm on Monday. Police said the call was not connected as she was talking to someone else. When she tried calling back, the phone was switched off.
Police went to CMR on Tuesday and verified with first year students about ragging allegations. "No student spoke of ragging in collegeWe will visit the college again on Wednesday," Balanagar in-charge DCP B Srinivas Reddy told TOI.
Police called Sainath's grand father Munnaiah to Medchal to collect some personal details about the victim.