West Bengal government committee visits JU campus, seeks certain inputs on anti-ragging measures

KOLKATA: The fact-finding committee set up by the West Bengal government to find out if any "administrative and infrastructural lapses" resulted in the death of a first-year undergraduate student at the Jadavpur University hostel on Tuesday visited the varsity campus and talked to officials.

Three members committee, consisting of senior Education department officials Chandrani Tudu, Jayasree Roy Choudhury and Sibaji Ghosh, met Jadavpur University registrar Snehamanju Basu at her office and sought certain infrastructure-related information. Basu said the members sought certain details from JU authorities in a week's time with regard to the number of hostel inmates, the number of seats in a hostel, the admission procedure to hostels and which anti-ragging steps are already in place in the premier higher educational institution.

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"They have given a form where certain details are to be listed such as number of hostels, seats and actual and estimated numbers of last five years," the senior JU official added. "We will compile all these inputs for submission to the committee within the given time. We have passed on the queries to concerned departments already," she added. Roy Choudhury said, "We have given requisition for certain information regarding hostel and university infrastructure. Whenever we get the reply, we will submit follow-up recommendations."

She said the queries include the functioning of the anti-ragging squad, the officials in charge of the squad, when the squad goes on vigil, how many security guards are in campus and hostels, how many areas are covered by CCTV. "We will focus on both administrative lapses and infrastructure lapses," she said. The team also inspected the boys' main hostel where the first-year undergraduate student had fallen from the second floor on August 9 night and died hours later on August 10 after being subjected to intense ragging by hostel seniors.

The committee, which was formed on August 17, had been asked to submit its report in two weeks. A 17-year-old first-year student fell off the second-floor balcony of the JU boys' hostel on August 9 night and died on August 10. There were allegations that the first-year UG student had fallen after being ragged and sexually abused by seniors for hours.

In another development, the JU authorities called an all-stakeholders meeting on September 1 to discuss steps for combating ragging, bullying and any inappropriate conduct on the main campus as well as in hostels. Officiating Vice-Chancellor Buddhadeb Sau said the decision to call a meeting of all stakeholders on an urgent basis has been taken as requested by a section of students.