Calcutta University has asked the students who allegedly locked up teachers and students of the geography department on July 8 at Ballygunge Science College under the pretext of a protest to meet the registrar next month and explain their conduct.
A research scholar with alleged links to the Trinamool Congress who allegedly incited students, has also been told to meet the university authorities, registrar Debasis Das said on Friday.
“I have told the students who are in the second-year to meet me after August 21, a day after the completion of their final semester (fourth semester) examination. They have to explain their conduct. If we are not satisfied with their explanation, then disciplinary action will be taken against them,” registrar Debasis Das said on Friday. “The research scholar will be called as well,” he said.
The students who went to collect their admit cards from the university’s College Street campus on Wednesday were told by the registrar to meet him after their exams were over. The examinations will start on July 23.
“Since their examinations are about to start, they wanted to meet after the examination. This was accepted. However, we are not treating this lightly,” registrar Das told Metro.
On July 8, a section of postgraduate students at Ballygunge Science College allegedly locked up their peers who were filling out examination forms in the geography department.
A CU official said there are allegations that teachers who were helping in filling out had also been locked up.
Suranjana Bandyopadhyay, the head of the department at the college, told this newspaper last week that she spoke to the registrar and, with the intervention of the assistant secretary of the campus, the door was unlocked
“The 40 students were helped by a research scholar (Sajal Mondal) to lock the room,” she had said.
A CU official said they are treating the complaint seriously following what had happened at South Calcutta Law College in Kasba on June 25.
Monojit Mishra, the former Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP) unit president of the college, along with two second-year students — Pramit Mukherjee, 20, and Zaib Ahmed, 19, — had allegedly gang-raped a 24-year old woman student on the campus.
“Before committing the offence, Mishra stood accused of committing excesses on fellow students and teachers. So, we are treating the complaint of alleged excess seriously,” the official said.
On July 8, the 40 students started protesting after they were barred from filling out forms because of a disciplinary action against them for allegedly making a false caste-bias allegation against a guest teacher in the department, a CU official said.
“So, when 75 other second year students were allowed to fill out forms, they started protesting and they confined teachers and other students,” he said. They were later allowed to fill out forms.
When this newspaper spoke to research scholar Mondal, he denied the charges and any affiliation with the TMCP.
“I have not received any call from the registrar’s office. I am a research scholar of the same department, and the 40 students came to me because they were debarred from filling out the form. I was there only to support them mentally,” said Mondal.
“It was the students who had locked up the room. I am being dragged into this.”