Support, Empowerment & Activism
OUR ACTIVITIES & ACHIEVEMENTS IN A NUTSHELL !
Support & Empowerment to Victims and Their Families
We receive communications from victims and their family members through our website, emails or over the phone. Some even complain through social media platforms. We try our level best to provide support to the victims and their families. Our Legal and RTI Desk have been crucial in this area.
Usually, on receiving a report we contact the institution (normally the name of the victim is kept confidential) and simultaneously intimate the National (UGC) Anti-Ragging Helpline and various other stakeholders. Depending on importance, some cases are intimated to the concerned state government, state and/or the National Human Rights Commission. We demand action from the college authorities and often follow it up.
Our website (www.No2Ragging.Org) contains helpful information for all victims of ragging, which includes preventive measures or methods to counter ragging. The website also provides practical knowledge on legal aspects including victim’s rights, states’ anti-ragging legislations and application filing process under RTI (Right to Information) Act. The website has counted more than a lakh hits/month during the past years.
SAVE’s members have also empowered the victims through active representation, legal counsel, and by filing RTI applications on behalf of the victims.
SAVE’s active intervention has even filled in the gaps where the Anti Ragging Helpline have failed to assist some of the victims.
In some cases, SAVE has collaborated with the friends and family members of dead victims, through memorial events and demand of proper investigation of their cases [Read a news report by the Times of India]. These events were clubbed with signature campaigns to develop a comprehensive national anti-ragging legislation. At present, only some states have individual state legislations against ragging. SAVE has been demanding a central act with adequate coverage of the preventive part.
A few examples . . .
A case in point is the harassment of a ragging victim from Tamil Nadu. SAVE’s members not only provided him with free legal and psychological counselling but also wrote to the Hon’ble Chief Justice of Chennai High Court who took suo-moto cognizance of the matter, instructing the Police to submit its reply for the alleged conduct. As a result, the police registered an FIR against the perpetrators of ragging and stopped harassing the victims.
“Juniors ‘stripped, abused’ at Thanjavur engineering college”: The Times of India
SAVE’s Legal Head, Naveen Kujur, has represented the victim of ragging. He has been successful in setting a precedent in the history of the anti-ragging movement in the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA). He has received a direction from a magisterial court for registering an FIR against the Director, Dean and Registrar of School of Planning and Architecture.
“Naveen Kujur ragging: Case against SPA for negligence and tampering with evidence”: The Indian Express.
[Click Here to Read the News Article]
A letter by SAVE’s Legal Head also prompted the National Human Rights’ Commission to take cognizance of this matter.
In some cases the victims, supported by SAVE, later turned out to be Anti-Ragging activists with us and have actively supported other victims.
More on the line...
As a part of our compliance check campaign, we have sent thousands of emails and faxes to the educational institutions, universities and deemed universities to remind them of their anti-ragging duties. We also recommend them about effective anti-ragging preventive measure, for we believe “Prevention is better than Cure”.
We have also filed several RTI applications with state and central governments to inquire about the status of the anti-ragging committees.
Example
SAVE has filed multiple RTIs with University Grants Commission (UGC) to inquire about actions taken against errant Institutions. Accordingly, the UGC has directed the Vice-Chancellor of the affiliating University to take punitive action against the said Kanpur based institution).
