For bail, youth submit report on ragging

COIMBATORE: For five students of a college here, the next time they would even think of indulging in ragging, they would definitely think again.  Call it a change of heart, thanks to a little nudge perhaps from the long arm of the law, but it was these same students, who on Tuesday (the last date), submitted to a court their reports spanning 300 pages on the very menace they committed — ragging.It all started on August 10, when the five, from the Kongunadu Arts and Science College, were directed by Judicial Magistrate L S Sathiyamurthy to research and submit reports on ragging as a condition before releasing them on a bail.Considering their young age, the court spared them from the procedure of presenting themselves before the local police station or the district court on a daily basis.The five students — V Thangamuthu (20), G Vijayakanth (21), R Lalithkumar (20), G Manikandan (22), S Prabhakaran (24) — were arrested and remanded after they passed lewd comments on girl students at their college.Their reports dwelt not only with various negative aspects of the banned act, but also on ways to curtail the menace.  It delved on the evolution of ragging, the list of incidents and effective participation of students in preventing ragging in educational institutions.They were arrested under section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Ragging Act last Thursday (August 4).The police are yet to file a chargesheet in the case, after which the trail would begin.While Thangamuthu is a first year student, four others are final year scholars.