A member of Jadavpur University’s executive council has written to the vice-chancellor about “delay” in issuing show-cause letters to students held responsible for ragging a first-year student who died in August last year.

JU’s executive council, the highest decision-making body of the university, had on July 5 decided to issue show-cause notices to the students found guilty in an internal probe.

The anti-ragging committee of JU submitted its probe report in December 2023.

Council member Kazi Masum Akhtar wrote to the VC on Saturday: “Sir, why the showcause notice to those accused of ragging has not yet been served, even after a decision was taken in the EC meeting? I also beg to ask you how your esteemed office intends to curb ragging on the campus without initiating action against those who are responsible for the death of the first-year student?”

Senior students of the university allegedly threw the 17-year-old first-year student from the second-floor balcony of the JU Main Hostel on August 9 last year. He died early on August 10.

“It has been almost a year since the death of the student. When will the victim get justice?” the council member asked in the letter.

The council’s July 5 resolution said the recommendation of the anti-ragging committee, based on the decision of the anti-ragging squad at its meeting on December 1, 2023, was approved with the condition that “all students/ex-students/outsiders implicated” would be allowed to defend themselves by responding to show-cause notices to be issued by JU.

Akhtar told Metro: “When the council met on July 5, we were told that show-cause letters would be issued in the following week. Over a fortnight has passed since. If the university takes so long to issue a show-cause notice, when will it show the courage to punish the guilty?”

The anti-ragging committee’s report said five residents of the main hostel who were “present” during the ragging “may be rusticated for four semesters and expelled from JU hostels permanently”.

It also recommended that 25 hostel residents be rusticated for one semester and expelled from hostels permanently as they were “directly associated with abetment to ragging”.

Asked about the delay, interim VC Bhaskar Gupta said on Saturday: “We will issue a show-cause letter after taking legal opinion. I hope the letters will be issued next week.”

JU registrar Snehamanju Basu said in a WhatsApp message on Tuesday: “We
have taken legal advice and started writing the show-cause letters.”