Vandals scaled the wall of the West Bengal University of Teachers’ Training, Education, Planning and Administration’s David Hare campus on Ballygunge Circular Road on Friday night and damaged the server room, the auditorium and the music room.
Several AC units have been destroyed and electrical wires snapped. Those who carried out the destruction had entered the teacher education department head’s room and damaged furniture, police said.
People still refer to the institute by its earlier name, David Hare Training College.
Cops have started investigating the matter based on a complaint filed by the university officials at Ballygunge police station. The police are scanning CCTV footage to find out if the vandals had entered the four-storey building from the rear or the front.
The hostel on the campus is almost empty barring a few people from other states who have not been able to leave, the police said.
“It is a disgrace that an institution that bears the name of David Hare has been vandalised,” Sonia Chattopadhyay, a teacher at the institution, said.
Some police officers said the trigger could be a campaign that has been gathering momentum on social media protesting the university’s decision to hold fourth semester exams for BEd and MEd at “home centres” during the pandemic.
Server room on the David Hare campus on Saturday
The first exam for BEd students is scheduled for October 1 and for MEd on October 6.
On September 8, the university had issued a notice with the schedule for the exams. Amit Kumar Bhattacharjee, the university’s controller of examinations, had said in the notice that exams would be conducted at home centres.
Some students felt they would have to physically turn up at colleges for the exams.
The next day, the university issued another notice clarifying students could take the exams from their homes, online. The notice said there was no question of holding exams on the campus and termed the allegation that it had not kept in mind the pandemic “completely false”.
“We will talk to several students to find out if this was an orchestrated attack,” an officer of Ballygunge police station said.
