Jadavpur University has decided to punish students accused of conspiracy in the ragging and abetment to ragging of a first-year student who died in August last year.
The decision was taken during a meeting of the university’s anti-ragging committee on Monday.
Six JU students, former and present, who have been “identified as raggers” and four JU students who have been identified as being “fully involved in ragging” by the committee will be outside the purview of what the committee resolved on Monday as they are in judicial custody.
The first-year student died on August 10, 2023, hours after senior students at the hostel allegedly ragged him.
The recommendations of the anti-ragging committee which the university will implement say five students may be “rusticated for four semesters” and “expelled from JU hostel permanently”.
The committee said in its recommendations that these five “boarders” (residents of the main hostel) “have been identified from many depositions to have been present at the second floor, block A/2 JUMH (Jadavpur University Main Hostel), on the night of August 9, 2023, and are directly associated with criminal conspiracy to rag”.
The university has decided to act on the committee’s recommendations which say 25 hostel residents may be “rusticated for one semester” and expelled from JU hostels permanently.
According to the committee, these students have been “directly associated” with abetment to ragging.
The university’s anti-ragging squad (ARS), based on whose probe the committee drew its recommendations, said: “The ARS observes that despite earlier mentioned notifications and phone calls by the IC (Internal Committee), some students (from these 25) did not care to turn up or inform the university authorities about their absence. The ARS comes to the conclusion that these students deliberately remained absent......in such a grave situation.”
The committee also recommended that all 71 senior residents of the main hostel have to submit a declaration to the administration stating that they would not be involved in ragging in the campus and the hostel and if such connection or involvement is found, strict action would be taken against them”.
“....In most of the cases, the hostel boarders were found to have a very vague idea about what kind of torture or bullying or behaviour can be identified as ragging.... They must participate in a sensitisation camp or workshop,” the committee said.
The committee recommended action against three then office bearers of Fetsu (Faculty of Engineering and Technology Students’ Union) as they were “part of the criminal conspiracy to rag since these students had full details of the immediate happening of the night of August 9.... and the previous incidents of ragging....But neither informed the university authorities on the day of the incident nor in earlier ones”.
The committee recommended, of the three office bearers, two “be debarred from entry into JU premises (academic as well as hostels) for life”.
Regarding the other office bearer, the committee recommended: “University should separately investigate his role as a research scholar of this university with reference to the code of conduct of research scholar....”
Calls to JU vice-chancellor Bhaskar Gupta, the committee’s chairman, failed to yield any response.
A JU official said 15 students against whom the committee has recommended punishments have moved court and the university will not implement its punishment on them at the moment.
They had moved the court in early August.
