Jadavpur University students have told the authorities in a meeting to decide on the anti-ragging measures that they have to be consulted on the exact locations where CCTV cameras would be installed, officials said.
The students also told the meeting on Friday that they should be made aware of who would monitor the footage.
The officials said these were the same students who had confined JU’s officiating VC Buddhadeb Sau on Monday for several hours protesting “any surveillance measure” on the campus.
After a first-year student was allegedly murdered in the main hostel, education minister Bratya Basu and the state child rights panel had criticised the university for not installing CCTV cameras in keeping with a directive issued by the UGC many years ago.
The boy died on August 10. The cameras have yet to be installed.
On Friday, the students were part of a “stakeholders” meeting.
JU registrar Snehamanju Basu said: “Students have certain questions regarding CCTV cameras. The students want that they be consulted about who will monitor the CCTV and where the cameras will be installed.... They
don’t want us to take decisions unilaterally. They want us
to take decisions democratically.”
Basu said: “The VC has said everybody will be kept in the loop about the steps the university will take.”
Sau later said: “We are yet to take any decision on CCTV. I have noted the (students’) suggestions.”
Gurudas College has barred the general secretary of the students’ union from entering the college after a female student accused him of “harassment” in a complaint lodged on the UGC’s anti-ragging helpline earlier this week.
The anti-ragging committee of the college in a written communication to the accused student on Thursday said: “In view of the complaint... received from the UGC, you are instructed not to enter the college premises till further notice.”
The student told this newspaper on Thursday: “I have not received any such communication from the committee.”
In June, another student had lodged a complaint against the accused on the UGC’s anti-ragging helpline. That complainant alleged that the general secretary had threatened to teach him a lesson if he did not take part in programmes of Trinamul Chhatra Parishad.