15 October 2021 08:40 am Views - 391
By Chaturanga Samarawickrama
A batch consisting more than 70 students attached to the Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science Faculty of the Peradeniya University were suspended for ragging their fellow students who had contracted Covid, a senior official of the university said.
He said the batch of students were generally controlled by a group of senior students by ragging them. The spread of the virus among the students also was due to irrational activities by the senior student group, he said. The senior veterinary medicine students’ untoward behaviour going against the COVID health guidelines caused the spreading of the virus, the official said.
“The senior students are reported to have prevented the newcomers who were with COVID symptoms to go to hospitals for treatment and they had been compelled to remain in the campus. As a result of this, the virus had spread among the whole batch including the university staff,” he said.
The entire batch of students have been suspended, including those who were not involved in the incident. It was reported that those who were involved in the ragging were attached to the university students’ union. The incident had taken place during the previous month. However, the senior official wished to remain anonymous.
Moreover, the Vice Chancellor (VC) of the Peradeniya University reported to have investigated the incident and suspended the whole batch with immediate effect. our attempts to contact the VC were unsuccessful at the time this article went to print as he was out of the country and efforts to get a comment from the Dean of the faculty was also futile.