A face-off between a group of students and non-teaching staff on Thursday night has again put Jadavpur University (JU) on the boil.

The trouble erupted on the campus even before the university could act on the report of the Ashoke Mohan Chakraborty commission, which probed last year’s clashes between anti-SFI students and non-teaching staff.

Around 11.30pm on Thursday, security guards allegedly spotted some students smoking ganja near the open-air theatre, where We the Independents (WTI) — an anti-SFI lobby of science faculty students — had organised a soiree. The guards asked the students to hand over the ganja but they refused to do so. A Group-D worker, who was on security duty, allegedly snatched the ganja away.

Around 1.30am, after the programme ended, the group of students allegedly dragged the Group-D employee out of his quarters on the campus and beat him up. He was rescued by his colleagues, living in quarters nearby.

On Friday morning, members of Karmachari Samsad, the CPM-controlled union of the university’s non-teaching staff, met registrar Rajat Bandyopadhyay and demanded action against students involved in the violence.

“The university will start an inquiry as soon as it receives an official complaint from the employees,” said Bandyopadhyay.

“This is the first time that students have dragged an employee out of his quarters and beat him up,” said Swapan Ghosh, the Samsad vice-president.

Surajit Sarkar, a WTI leader, admitted that there had been “trouble” near the open-air theatre on Thursday, but claimed he had no knowledge of any supporter of the students’ lobby being involved.