The two Jadavpur University research scholars who have been accused by the students’ union in the engineering faculty of being involved in an admission racket wrote to the university’s SC/ST cell on Monday separately, alleging they were mentally and physically harassed by the union.
The two — Biswajit Das, of the philosophy department, and Mithun Majumder, of the international relations department — have written that they feel unsafe on the campus.
Two men, Suraj Mukherjee and Souvik Mandal, were arrested at JU last Wednesday following a complaint by the Faculty of Engineering and Technology Students’ Union (Fetsu) that they were offering engineering seats at the university in exchange for money.
Suraj and Souvik were rounded up while JU was conducting “spot counselling” for seats that remained vacant after the state JEE board’s centralised counselling.
Leaders of the students’ union also alleged that the two PhD scholars were involved with the accused, a JU official said.
Biswajit mentioned in the letter to the SC/ST cell that he had come to know the two arrested persons through social media. They wanted to meet him on December 22, the day they said they would be at JU for their sister’s admission.
“Upon arriving over there (a students’ union room near the counselling centre), a kangaroo court was set up and I was mentally and physically harassed by a section of FETSU students…. I wish to state that this trauma has made me feel insecure and I am now afraid to come to the campus,” Biswajit has written to the SC/ST cell.
Mithun has written he was harassed when he tried to rescue Biswajit when he was being forcibly taken to the union room.
“I feel unsafe to enter the campus and also wish to state that I was even harassed on social media…” Mithun has written.
Kanishka Sarkar, the member secretary of the SC/ST cell, said: “I will forward the complaint to vice-chancellor Suranjan Das, who is the chairman of the cell, and await his advice.”
Fetsu chairperson Aritra Majumder said the university must take immediate action if there was any malpractice.