Two second-year students at Jadavpur University have been arrested in connection with the death of the first-year student, who died after allegedly being thrown from the main hostel late on Wednesday.
Police said a letter addressed to the “Dean of Student” has been found in a diary of the first-year student. Officers said they are trying to find out whether the letter was written by the student or “manufactured” to mislead the investigation.
The second-year students who have been arrested are Deepsekhar Dutta, 19, and Monotosh Ghosh, 20. Dutta studies economics honours and Ghosh sociology honours.
The adviser to the West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Ananya Chatterjee Chakraborti, said on Sunday the first-year student who died was a minor. She said she has asked the police to add sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act in the case.
As the victim was not yet 18 and Pocso has been cited now, he can no longer be identified under law.
An officer said on Sunday the police will submit a prayer in court on Monday to add sections under the Pocso Act to the charges against the accused.
The police said Dutta and Ghosh, who were arrested early on Sunday, have been charged under IPC sections dealing with murder and common intention. They have been remanded in police custody till August 22.
On Friday, a former student at JU, Sourav Chowdhury, had been arrested in connection with the death. Chowdhury had cleared his master’s in math last year but allegedly stayed on at the main hostel.
Officers said they found a yellow diary in the belongings of the first-year student. In the diary was a letter addressed to the dean of students and purportedly signed by the victim.
“The letter mentions the name of a senior student, who, it says, told the victim that junior students at the hostel were made to do some tasks for seniors. If they disobeyed, the juniors were threatened that they would be thrown from the rooftop. The letter also says the victim was told by this senior that students at the hostel were ‘weed addicts and smoked a lot’,” said an officer involved in the inquiry.
The letter was dated August 10, 2023. The first-year student was declared dead at a hospital in Jadavpur around 4.30am on August 10.
“The first-year student died on August 10. So when could he have written this? We suspect either he had been forced to sign the document before or it was manufactured after his death to mislead the investigation,” the officer said.
Officers who visited the victim’s house in Nadia on Saturday collected samples of his handwriting.
The lawyer representing accused Dutta submitted in the court: “There is nothing against my client except circumstantial evidence. His name is not mentioned in the FIR.” The lawyer who appeared for accused Ghosh, too, said his client’s name is not mentioned in the FIR.
The public prosecutor submitted: “They (the accused) are trying to divert the probe.”
Theft
Students at GC Memorial Hostel of JU alleged that two laptops and four mobile phones were stolen from rooms on the ground and second floors on Sunday morning. The students alleged that “outsiders” had entered and stolen the gadgets while they were asleep. They demanded that security at the hostel be tightened.