New Delhi, July 16 (IANS) The anti-ragging squads were literally omnipresent in all college premises, the principals were on their guard, and police vans were parked outside the college campuses - Thursday was, after all, the first day of the new session in Delhi University. And the day started largely on a no-ragging note .
Welcoming the first-year students to the university campus were huge posters and banners reassuring that “Ragging can put you in jail”, and giving out telephone numbers of police officers who could be contacted if any incident of ragging occurred.

Also, spread across the sprawling university area were Delhi Police vans and pickets, set up to keep a check on ragging incidents.

V.K. Kawatra, principal of Hansraj College, told IANS: “Our college authorities have formulated a special anti-ragging committee consisting of 25 members, which has of one police official as well. All the crowd attracting areas of the college are under constant surveillance and I am taking regular rounds of the campus”.

Similarly Kanan Nanda, principal of Daulat Ram college for women, said: “We have a number of police officials deployed outside our college premises. If any such incident happens in and around our college, we will immediately contact them and strict action will be taken against the students”.

Seeing all these anti-ragging arrangements, students like Smita Gupta, a fresher in Kirori Mal college, were relieved. She said: “Earlier the very thought of attending the first day of the college made me very scared”.

“But after seeing the security arrangements in the campus and the cooperation of the faculty, I walked inside the gate of college with full confidence,” Gupta said.

However, the first year students did interact with their seniors on a “positive” note, as could be seen in many college canteens.

Rajendra Prasad, principal of Ramjas college, said: “Stopping new students from interacting with their seniors would be very unfair, after all they study together in the college. Our check is only on ragging, which can demean someone’s self-esteem”.

“We have our anti-ragging squad functional and some senior students are also a part of it,” Prasad told IANS.

Surprisingly, there were quite a few new students, freshers as they are called, who were actually disappointed with the anti-ragging measures.

“It’s so disappointing! We had our orientation day yesterday and our principal said that ragging was strictly prohibited in the college. Not surprisingly, there was no ragging in the campus today - but I was actually looking forward to some harmless fun and interaction with my seniors. That would have been the perfect ice-breaker between us,” Sarika Nair, a first year student in St. Stephen’s College, told IANS.