Is this ragging or bullying?

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090504/jsp/nation/story_10913050.jsp

Bullying’ probe rolls in showpiece school

MANJEET SEHGAL WARRIOR AND PTI

Sanawar, May 3: The Himachal Pradesh government today ordered an inquiry into the brutal attack on 11 students of Lawrence School, Sanawar, by seven seniors last month. “On April 25, when a basketball match was being played on the school campus, some senior boys (Class XII students) had asked the junior boys (Class XI students) to cheer the players, but they refused. The seniors decided to teach the juniors a lesson,” said Vivek Chandel, the sub-divisional magistrate, Solan, who is part of the three-member probe team. The Solan deputy commissioner, Amandeep Garg, is heading the team that also includes superintendent of police S.P.S. Verma. According to unconfirmed reports, the junior students were beaten up that night by the seven seniors with wet belts, hockey sticks and rods. The eardrums of six students were damaged and one has lost 70 per cent hearing, the reports said. Haleena Bajwa, the mother of one of the victims, said: “They were beaten up with rods and belts. My son’s eardrums are perforated.” Another mother, Shalu Gupta, said her son had “scars” on his back, hips and legs. “He is traumatised.” Principal Praveen Vashisht confirmed that the boys had suffered “serious injuries.” “They had ear injuries and there were marks on their bodies,” he said. The Sanawar school, located in the Kasauli hills in Solan district about 80km from Chandigarh, is one of the country’s best-known and counts among its alumni Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, chief election commissioner Navin Chawla and actor Sanjay Dutt. “I am ashamed that such an incident took place in our school. I took action as soon as possible. An inquiry was ordered within 24 hours. All the evidence was against the accused students, who were rusticated within 30 hours of the incident,” Vashisht said. The seven students belong to influential families of New Delhi, Chandigarh and Punjab and one of them was the school’s deputy head boy. However, the principal denied this was a case of “ragging”. “You call it ragging and we call it a bullying. But such incidents should not happen anywhere in any institution,” Vashisht said. Chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal agreed that “prima facie it is not a case of ragging but a clash of students”.