Jadavpur: A graffiti in the stairway of Jadavpur University’s main hostel shows how life there transforms a timid cat into a tiger with ferocious teeth and claws.
Between the cat and the tiger are the words “hostel life”, written in the shape of an arrow.
A police team was at the main hostel on Monday afternoon in connection with the probe into a first-year student’s alleged murder by his seniors.
An officer who was part of the team said: “It is clear from the graffiti that the cat represents young students, who will transform into tigers once they endure the challenges of hostel life.”
A forensic team went to the main hostel with a dummy on Monday to try and reconstruct the events that led to the fatal of the 17-year-old student on the night of August 9.
The police said the exercise was meant to ascertain the nature of the fall.
“The dummy was thrown from the balcony, under which the victim was found that night, from several positions. The trajectory of the fall, the distance between the place where the victim fell and the base of the building, whether the victim had fallen face up or down, all will be considered,” said an officer at Lalbazar.
A police vehicle leaves the JU Main Hostel campus on Monday Bishwarup Dutta
If the first-year student had committed suicide by jumping from the balcony, the nature of the fall and position of the body would be different from that if the victim was thrown from the balcony, said the officer.
The police said a “big challenge” in this case was that as they were not allowed into the hostel immediately after the boy fell, they would have to depend on the statements of eyewitnesses to ascertain the spot where and the position in which the student was found.
“We were not allowed into the premises (immediately after the boy had fallen). Hence, we do not have first-hand information about the exact position where he had fallen,” an officer at Jadavpur police station said.
The investigators will study the findings of the forensic report and the post-mortem report to reach a conclusion about the nature of the fall.
Police sources said investigators till now have recorded statements of at least
20 students and former students, apart from the 12 accused who have been arrested and charged with murder.
“The findings of the forensic examination will be crucial in determining whether the student committed suicide or was murdered,” said the officer at Jadavpur police station.
A complaint lodged by the boy’s parents say the boy was killed by a group of current and former students on the third day of his stay at JU Main Hostel.
The police said the boy was not in possession of his mobile phone when he made his last phone call to his mother on the night of August 9 and said he was feeling “very scared”. He apparently used a senior’s phone.
Other than the 12 accused charged with murder, a former student at JU has been arrested for allegedly preventing the police from doing their duty after the first-year’s boy fall.