I refer to several reports regarding the shocking death of 16-year old Mohammed Naim Mustaqim Mohammed Sobri, a student at the Royal Military College (RMC) who was allegedly beaten to death by five of his colleagues.

The problem is that many senior officers in the military support ragging. In fact, when the torture of a trainee air force pilot Mohd Hazim Ahmad Azam, 19, in Alor Star was raised by the press in February 2007, one retired armed forces chief was quoted as saying that ‘in the military, ragging is seen as a way of instilling discipline, character-building and esprit de corps’.

With this unofficial sanctioning of ragging, the seniors students will gang up against the juniors and under the guise of enforcing discipline and teaching good army traits, subject them at length to all kinds of physical and mental abuse.

I remember a colleague of mine whose son was a student at RMC in the early eighties telling me that the seniors would slap his son, a junior on his forehead till he literally saw stars and fainted. It was called the ‘star treatment’

This so-called military tradition of disciplining errant juniors is nothing more than encouraging mob violence, which, when it gets out of hand results in serious injury and in this case, the tragic death of this teenager.

Those who were responsible for this tragic incident must face the full brunt of the law. Nothing will ever bring back Mohammed Naim nor douse the anguish of his parents. What happened to their son should be a lesson to all others.

The Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst is the oldest and finest officer’s training school in the world. I am told by some of our officers who were trained there, that there is absolutely no ragging of any form and new cadets were treated with respect.

At home, the Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) is reputed as the premier college in the country. A colleague and former student of it has told me, that there was the normal orientation for three days but never any form of ragging at MCKK , adding that the juniors were always protected by seniors and teachers.

I am sure the public would also like to know what has happened to the ‘strict guidelines’ on ragging which were introduced by the Defence Ministry following a similar incident in Kuching in the 1980s. In that incident, a trainee pilot died.

A military establishment like the RMC which is supposed to produce our country’s future leaders, captains of our industries and calibre military officers, should ensure that it has zero tolerance to any form of physical violence.

If a military training establishment cannot ensure that, then there is something sadistically and seriously wrong with it. For a start the head of the commandant of the school must roll. The Defence Ministry must act decisively to ban all forms of ragging in the military with immediate effect.