A team from the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) visited Jadavpur University to “identify appropriate technology to effectively contain and eliminate the menace of ragging on the campus”, said a JU official.
Two Isro scientists went around the campus on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The scientists visited the university’s main hostel where a first-year student was allegedly ragged and killed by his seniors on the night of August 9.
The Isro team held discussions with officiating vice-chancellor Buddhadeb Sau and other university officials.
On August 24, the Raj Bhavan had said in a statement: “Close on wheels of the success of the Chandrayan Mission, ISRO has offered support of advanced technology to prevent ragging in the university campuses in West Bengal…. They are trying to develop an appropriate technology solution using multiple sources such as video analytics, image matching automatic target recognition and remote sensing.”
Late on August 24, JU’s officiating vice-chancellor and the pro-VC had also spoken
to some Isro officials via video conferencing.
“As we sought proposals from Isro, it was finalised in the meeting that the team would visit the campus on September 5 and 6,” said VC Sau.
Isro did not want to disclose the identities of the visiting scientists in detail because of security issues, said a JU official.
Officiating VC Sau said the team had conducted its “spot verification”.
“The team in the first phase has carried out a requirement analysis. This is an academic institute. There are some ifs and buts. Based on that we will carry out a feasibility study. I have held a meeting with Isro,” the VC told reporters after the team left the JU
campus on Wednesday afternoon.
“The security concerns of an academic institute and Isro cannot be the same. At the level of designing technologies, which will have several components, we will take the help of Isro. There is an issue of funding. It will take time,” Sau said.
The university is yet to install CCTV cameras at the gates of the hostel and on the campus as part of its anti-ragging measures although almost a month has passed since the death of the 17-year-old undergraduate student.