This Article is From Jun 23, 2016

Nursing Student's Ragging: 2 Seniors Charged With Attempted Murder

The Karnataka nursing student is being treated at the Kozhikode Medical College.

Kozikhode: Over a month after an 18-year-old student of a Karnataka nursing college was forced to drink phenyl, which burnt her internal organs, two of her seniors have been charged with attempt to murder in addition to ragging.

The first year student of Al Qamar college, a Dalit, is in a hospital in Kerala. She can't eat or drink, or even swallow her saliva.

In a police complaint, she had named five of eight seniors who allegedly held her down and forced phenyl down her throat on May 9.

"They said you go and die drinking this. I tried to escape but they again caught me and made me drink the fluid," she said in the complaint.

The teen thrashed about on the floor in pain and was taken to hospital by her friends.

She was first hospitalized in Karnataka. When her condition worsened, she was moved to Kerala, her home state.

Doctors say she needs major surgery as the chemical has severely damaged her food pipe. She may take four months to recover from the burns between her throat and stomach.

The girl joined the nursing college five months ago and alleges that she was harassed throughout. She says the college is complicit in the extreme ragging as it did not punish earlier incidents.

Speaking to NDTV over the phone, she said, "It's been more than 40 days since I attended the college but no one from there has called me even once."

Her condition is still critical.

The student's mother, a daily wage labourer, took a loan of Rs. 3 lakh to educate her daughter.

"She really wants to study so I took loan. I raised both my daughters after my husband left," she told NDTV.

"I had no idea she was going through all this. What has happened to me must not happen to any other mother," she wept.
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