Jadavpur University’s anti-ragging committee has decided that six former students who have been found guilty of ragging a first-year undergraduate student who died on August 10 should be permanently barred from entering JU premises (academic or residential) “until proven not guilty” by court of law, officials said.
The six students are Sk. Nasim Akhtar, Himangshu Karmakar, Saptak Kamilya, Sourav Chowdhury, Asit Sardar and Suman Naskar, the officials said.
The anti-ragging committee, which met on Tuesday, accepted all recommendations of JU’s anti-ragging squad with regard to action against those found involved in ragging.
One such recommendation is that four students —Satyabrata Roy, Md. Arif, Manotosh Ghosh and Dipsekhar Dutta — be rusticated “permanently until proven not guilty by the concerned court of law”.
The anti-ragging squad, which had met on December 1, has written in a summary report that the six former students who it thinks should be barred from entering any JU premises “were present” at the particular portion of the university’s main hostel “during the mishap on the night of August 9”.
The summary says: “Due to police custody of these students, no interrogation of these students was possible.”
The first-year student allegedly fell off a balcony of the main hostel late on August 9. He died in hospital early on August 10.
The anti-ragging committee’s decision came a week after the father of the deceased student met education minister Bratya Basu and accused the university of “dilly-dallying” in taking action against the students found guilty of ragging his son.
The squad has written in its summary that the students who may be rusticated permanently “were found to be present and FULLY INVOLVED IN RAGGING either on the spot on the night of 9th August 2023 or/and before it”.
The committee has accepted the squad’s recommendation that five students — Angshuman Mondal, Ankan Sarkar, Dipak Mandal, Nasim Ahmed Mallick and Pritam Pramanik — be “rusticated for 04 (four) semesters, and expelled from JU hostels permanently” because they were directly associated with the criminal conspiracy to “rag in the hostel on 9th night”.
A member of the committee said 25 students should be rusticated for one semester and expelled from JU hostels permanently on grounds of abetment to ragging on the night of August 9.
“Another 22 students should be restricted from entering any JU hostel for at least two years because they were staying at the main hostel illegally. The anti-
ragging squad went through a report of an internal committee, which was constituted
on August 10 to probe the death, and made certain recommendations. These
recommendations have been accepted,” the member told Metro.
Officiating vice-chancellor Buddhadeb Sau, who chaired the anti-ragging committee meeting, said: “We will issue showcause notices to those found guilty asking them to explain why the recommended punishment should not be taken against them.”
The summary of the squad’s recommendations, which this newspaper had access to, says: “There is a lot of evidence of the fact that the deceased student was ragged in (a particular) block on 9th August 2023. He was tortured even on the preceding nights — just after he started staying in that hostel. Anumber of boarders of (that) block clearly stated in their depositions that ragging took place in that block in past years too.”
The committee has also recommended that the chairperson of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology Students’ Union (Fetsu) be barred from entering the campus for six months, said a JU official.
The squad’s summary says the chairperson was “aware about the fact that ragging takes place in the hostel on a regular basis” and was unable to produce any documents that may prove that during his tenure the union took any effective initiatives to stop “ragging’ practices”.
“Another student has been barred from the campus for a month,” the official said.
