Darsha Udayanga the university student who stormed Media earlier this month with his tales of graphic sexual torture he endured at the hands of students at University of Ruhuna says a group of students is gathering evidence of the ragging.
Talking to journalists in Colombo today (28 Aug) he described the fall out from his expose of the inhuman torture that students have undergone.
Darsha who was a victim of ragging practise that has claimed the lives of many university students in the past was the first to come forward to reveal about the degrading treatment he received.
After Darsha’s expose the authorities moved to arrest the perpetrators. The University Grant Commission (UGC), Human Rights Council (HRC) and Attorney General’s Department are involved in getting justice for the aggrieved students.
“Now questions are being raised as to why only one student came forward to reveal about the ragging,” said Darsha.
There are a lot more who had been ragged in a similar manner and quit University because of these incidents.
“We should do something to give them the justice and protect future student batches from receiving such raggings,” he added.
After 19 of the students in the Ruhuna University were arrested and remanded for ragging, the practice at the Ruhuna University has almost stopped.
He said that the group of raggers have an announcer nicknamed as ‘Gura’ who speaks to the freshers in a way to create the mindset that they should love ragging and that the administration and the management of the university had allowed them to rag the freshers.
“But later we found out that was not true, they even told us if we try to complain about the ragging to the management they would in return send them the names of those who complain,” Darsha said.
Other main characters in the ragging team are known as Bura the leader of the raggers and ‘Bonaparte’ who rags students separately by himself before the main ragging session.
Darsha also added that most of the inhuman raggings and tortures take plae in room no 114 which also known as the ‘Common Room’ in the Medawatta hostel of the university.
Another student from the same university who would like to remain anonymous for now said that he was responsible for gathering evidence within the university from other students who faced such traumatic tortures.
He also said he was able to make 10 more students come forward without fear to speak about the tortures they had received from these raggers.
With the help of the Vice-Chancellor in Ruhuna University, they hope to increase the number of witnesses.
Darsha also said that after the arrest of the 19 students for ragging he had been cornered by rest of the others in the university and other students are also been warned about consequences if they have any contact with him.
He also said that the Student Union of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ruhuna had made media statement inviting the future university students to join them without any fear as the ragging stories are fake.
“A complaint was lodged in the HRC in order to make sure the court case goes in the right direction,” Darsha said.
With the support of the Vice-Chancellor of the Ruhuna University Darsha and other students who were targeted by these cruel tortures has taken the initiative to establish an Anti-ragging Student Movement to prevent future raggings within the university