Jadavpur University’s tradition of dragging its feet on a complaint of ragging and delaying punishment for those who have been found guilty by the university’s own probe continues even after the death of a first-year student.
The university’s anti-ragging squad, which met on Wednesday, has asked its members to give their opinions on a report of the university’s internal committee into a complaint of ragging in connection with the death.
The committee in its report has already identified those it found guilty of ragging the 17-year-old boy in the main hostel and has recommended punishment.
An office-bearer of the squad will compile the opinions and send them to the squad members. The members will deliberate on the draft of what has been compiled and decide whether it could be tabled before the anti-ragging committee.
“The squad will then send the observations to the anti-ragging committee and no one knows when a meeting of the committee will be held,” said a source at JU.
The squad, which is mandated by the UGC to probe ragging complaints, met last Friday.
After five days, they could make progress only this far.
“In this delay, the chances of the university acting tough on those who are guilty of ragging the student who died on August 10 are getting thin,” said a JU official.
The student was allegedly thrown off a balcony of the A-2 block of the main hostel by senior students late on August 9. He was taken to a private hospital, where he died early next morning.
The university’s officiating VC had earlier said that the anti-ragging squad, and not an internal committee, should have been asked to investigate the student’s death.
“The squad members, who met on Wednesday afternoon, went through the report and gave their observations verbally. Some questioned the internal committee’s recommendation that all senior residents staying in the A-2 block of the main hostel be expelled because they were guilty of ‘taking part in the conspiracy to suppress the facts related to ragging’. They said the testimony of many of the senior students should be taken again. Some raised the demand for a further inquiry into the ragging complaint,” said a JU official.
“We have told them to email their opinions or observations to an office-bearer
of the squad so he could compile them and get them endorsed.”
It is not clear why the squad members were not told in the previous meeting that they should email their opinions.
According to sources, it was not possible for the office-bearers to take note of the many opinions that were placed in the meeting.
The university’s internal probe had said in its report that “all the senior boarders of A/2 block, JUMH (Jadavpur University Main Hostel) have been considered under UGC Regulation on Curbing the menace of Ragging in Higher Educational Institutions, 2009” for “collective punishment”.
The report named all 95 senior students of the A-2 block and said they may be expelled from the hostel permanently, and an appropriate warning be given.
VC Buddhadeb Sau said on Wednesday: “I was not given the minutes of the squad’s last meeting. I am not aware what transpired in Wednesday’s meeting. The guilty will be punished.”
Howrah school turns co-ed
A 25-year-old boys’ school in Howrah is opening its doors to girls from the next academic session.
MC Kejriwal Vidyapeeth will start by taking in girls in pre-primary classes from 2024.
“Parents had been asking us to make the school co-educational for about 10 years now. They would tell us that would be convenient if they could send their daughters to the same school,” said Kishan Kejriwal, chairman of the school.
The school started in May 1997 and celebrated its silver jubilee last year.