Bowing to pressure from the human resource development ministry, IIT, Delhi, authorities have expelled four students from the institute for six months in connection with the ragging of a fresher.

The decision came after a meeting on Saturday, IIT sources said.

The institute authorities had earlier expelled the students from the hostel for ragging first year student Prakash Rajpurohit.

However, the HRD ministry had expressed "displeasure" at the mild punishment given to the guilty students.

HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, taking serious note of the incident, had ordered a probe into the ragging and warned that the hostel would be shut down if such incidents recurred.