Jadavpur University’s officiating vice-chancellor on Thursday said the university had not engaged an authorised forum — the anti-ragging squad — to probe the death of a first-year student and this was causing a delay in meting out punishment to the guilty.
VC Buddhadeb Sau said it was not clear to him why an internal committee was constituted to probe the death of the 17-year-old boy, instead of assigning the task to the anti-ragging squad.
The student was allegedly ragged and thrown from a second-floor balcony of the JU Main Hostel on the night of August 9. He died at a hospital early next morning.
Sau was appointed officiating VC on August 20.
What the VC said has assumed significance because JU’s executive council, which met on Monday, could not decide on taking any action against those found guilty of ragging the first-year student by the internal committee because the panel’s findings have been sent to the anti-ragging squad.
The squad, which has been reconstituted, might decide to conduct a fresh probe, said a JU official.
The report of the internal probe was placed before the anti-ragging committee, which forwarded it to the anti-ragging squad. “The probe should have been handed to the squad immediately after the death. That could have averted any delay. The committee investigated for so many days. Then a discussion was started about why the anti-ragging squad was not functioning. If this responsibility was handed to the squad earlier, we would have avoided the delay,” VC Sau told Metro.
Sau was speaking when asked whether it was not regrettable that the executive council could not take any steps against those whom the internal probe found responsible for the student’s death.
All that the council could decide after a 12-hour meeting was that the 13 students who are behind bars, because of their alleged involvement in the events leading to the student’s death, would not be allowed to enter the hostel and the campus. They will regain their right to enter if they are acquitted by court.
On August 10, JU pro-vice-chancellor Amitava Datta had constituted the seven-member internal committee to probe the student’s died.
Datta refused to comment in a text message on Thursday.