Jadavpur University has constituted a three-member committee to look into a complaint lodged by a postgraduate student that he was verbally abused by senior students and was not feeling “safe” in the university’s main hostel.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the university’s anti-ragging squad, which met on Friday.
The university will decide whether they will lodge an FIR with the local police station and accommodate the student in a hostel on the campus, based on the findings of the three-member committee.
The student, who has not disclosed his identity in the complaint letter sent to the dean of students, has appealed that he be allotted accommodation on the campus because he is feeling unsafe in the main hostel, which is about 400m from the university campus.
Sanmoy Karmakar, chairperson of the anti-ragging squad, said: “We have constituted a committee to probe the complaint (which was lodged with the dean) in accordance with the UGC guidelines. Let the committee submit its report. Then we will decide on our course of action.”
A JU official said members of the squad met the residents of CD Block of the main hostel — the complainant stayed in this block before writing to the dean on November 27 — on Thursday to verify the allegations.
“Efforts to contact the complainant did not yield any results as he did not take any calls. Let the committee decide how it wants to go about probing the complaint,” said a squad member.
JU officiating VC Buddhadeb Sau told Metro on Thursday that it was clear from the latest complaint that “things have not changed much in the main hostel”.
The squad also accepted most of the recommendations of an internal committee that investigated a complaint of ragging that allegedly led to the death of a first-year undergraduate student in August.
The undergraduate student was allegedly ragged and thrown off a second-floor balcony of the main hostel on the night of August 9. He died early next morning.
One of the recommendations of the internal committee that the squad has accepted is that the JU authorities lodge an FIR against the students whom the panel identified in the report as “raggers” and permanently restrict their entry into any JU premises (academic or residential).
Another recommendation accepted by the squad is that the “raggers” be “rusticated permanently”.
The squad has turned down the recommendation that the 95 students who are residents of the A-2 block of the main hotel, where the undergraduate student was allegedly ragged, “may be expelled from the JU hostels permanently” on the ground of taking part in the conspiracy to suppress the facts related to ragging.
“The chairperson of the squad will summarise the recommendations and place them before the anti-ragging committee so that it can recommend action,” a member of the squad said.
Sau said: "I have called a meeting of the anti-ragging committee on December 5. Let the squad give its report. Accordingly, the committee will decide."
The father of the deceased student said: “I do not expect much from the university. The probe is moving back and forth between the squad and the committee. I don’t know whether they will show the courage to take any action against the offenders.”
