Jadavpur University on Friday identified a uniformed group that entered the campus on Wednesday and claimed to be part of the Indian Army as “trespassers” in a letter to police.
The letter ends with a line that urges the police to treat it as an FIR.
The university’s complaint comes after a two-day gap during which its officiating vice-chancellor had tried to justify the group’s presence and its alleged attempt to
take over the security and “human surveillance” on the campus.
The police had already drawn up a case on their own because the outfit had allegedly made false claims and misused the army logo and insignia.
JU’s letter seemed to suggest that the group could enter the campus as it happens to be the “common passage of daily commuters, guardians, morning walkers and neighbouring community”.
“The area of Jadavpur University main campus is over 5 acres of land comprising of student hostels, residential quarters, office of alumni association & NCE Bengal and other offices. Further, we have Jadavpur Vidyapith School adjacent to the University campus. So the campus of this University is a common passage of daily commuters, guardians, morning walkers and neighbouring community from its inception,” the letter says.
It adds: “In this context, I would like to request your good self to suggest a mechanism for proper vigilance over such vast area so we could avoid such type untoward incident in the future.”
Jadavpur University registrar Snehamanju Basu, from whose office the complaint was registered, said the letter was sent to Jadavpur police station through her
security guard.
“I have sent it through the security guard to Jadavpur police station. We had sought a report from the university’s security guards about the incident. That report has been attached to our letter of complaint,” Basu said.
Officiating vice-chancellor Buddhadeb Sau, who had on Wednesday and Thursday said he found no wrong if a group of people wanted to offer security on the campus, was asked about the university’s decision to lodge a police complaint on Friday.
He said: “As because they (police) have said (about the outfit being fraudulent), it means they must have verified. We were not aware of their credentials. The nature of our complaint would be that these people came to the university through the road. We do not have any mechanism to stop them. We will inform this to the police.”
A senior officer at the Kolkata police headquarters in Lalbazar said they had yet to see the complaint. “Most of the officers at Jadavpur police station were busy with
law-and-order duty (because of the protests around Gol Park and Jadavpur). We will check if the complaint has reached the police station,” the officer said.
The officer added that in case there is a complaint on behalf of the university now, it would be tagged to the case that has been initiated by the police suo motu on Thursday against the organisation named “Asian Human Rights Commission”.
The police had on Thursday said they lodged the complaint on their own because the JU authorities had appeared reluctant to do so.
The police said the self-proclaimed general secretary of the organisation — Quazi Sadeque Hossain — has been “out of reach” since Thursday. “His phone has been switched off and when a notice to appear before the police was served at his home, his wife did not cooperate,” a senior police officer said.
The Telegraph tried to contact Hossain on his cellphone several times on Friday but it was switched off.