Jadavpur University scholar stages sit-in against December ‘assault’

One of the two Jadavpur University research scholars who were beaten up after being accused by the students’ union in the engineering faculty of being involved in an admission racket, has been on a sit-in in front of the vice-chancellor’s office for the past three days demanding action against the assailants.

After the two had alleged that they were mentally and physically harassed by the members of the students’ union in December, the university had constituted a probe committee.

The protesting research scholar, Biswajit Das, philosophy department, said months have passed but the committee is yet to recorded statements.

“The incident happened on December 22. We were told that a retired judge would probe the incident,” said Das.  “Since we did not get justice, I took part in an indefinite sit-in that started from Monday”.  

 

The other research scholar is from the international relations department.

The sit-in has been supported by the Trinamul Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCP) unit on  the campus.

The incident in December had happened when the university was holding spot counselling to fill seats that remained vacant in first-year BTech programmes after the state JEE board's centralised counselling.

“I had written to the cell that upon arriving over there (a students’ union room near the counselling centre), a kangaroo court was set up and I was mentally and physically harassed by a section of FETSU students. Till date no investigation has happened,” said Biswajit Das.

Apart from the issue of the research scholars, the TMCP has begun the indefinite sit-in demanding a probe into the allegation that its unit president Sanjib Pramanik was recently threatened with assault in a video message by an SFI leader on the campus.

Those who held the kangaroo court and ran a smear campaign against the two scholars on social media are roaming freely because the university has failed to act, said Pramanik.  

Calls and text messages to vice-chancellor Suranjan Das went unanswered.