Open to CBI probe: Visva-Bharati Vice Chancellor on student's campus death

Kolkata: Visva-Bharati was open to a CBI inquiry into the death of a student on its campus as it wants the truth to come out, vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty said on Sunday. The family of the Class 12 student of Visva-Bharati-run Patha Bhavan school, whose body was found hanging in his hostel room on Thursday, has demanded a CBI investigation, alleging it was a murder and the varsity authorities were trying to hush it up.

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"If the parents of the boy demand investigation by the CBI or CID, we don't have any reservations. A young boy died and we don't know what went on in his mind in the last minutes. He is our child. I am with his family and my sympathies are with them," the vice-chancellor said.

"We want the truth to come out," he added. The 17-year-old boy, a native of Siuri in Birbhum district, purportedly had several wounds on his body when it was found, leading to suspicion in his family about the death. Chakraborty said he wanted to speak to the parents of the boy soon after the body was found.

"But, they were accompanied by protesters wielding bamboo poles. It was not advisable to meet the parents in such a circumstance," he said. The central varsity is yet to hold an internal investigation into the death, he said.

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"But, I have already started a process in which teachers are reaching out to his hostel mates and others to know what was going in his mind recently," he said. Chakraborty has been under fire from various quarters, including the TMC and BJP, for not meeting the parents of the boy.

Tension was palpable on the campus on Sunday even as police personnel in large numbers were kept on standby. Protests rocked the campus over the last three days as the boy's family demanded to meet the vice-chancellor over the death. The agitators, most of which were students of the varsity, had broke open the lock of the main gate of the vice-chancellor's residence. The boy's family has lodged a complaint at the Santiniketan police station, alleging murder.