A teacher at Jadavpur University on Thursday started a hunger strike on the campus to protest the university’s alleged failure to punish the students found guilty in an internal probe of ragging a first-year student who died.
Iman Kalyan Lahiri, a professor in the international relations department, sat on a hunger strike in a corridor on the ground floor of Aurobindo Bhavan, the administrative headquarters of JU, around 2pm.
He said he withdrew the protest around 8pm after officiating vice-chancellor Buddhadeb Sau assured him of action within 10 days based on what the anti-ragging committee says after examining the probe report.
Calls and text messages from this newspaper to VC Sau failed to elicit any response.
“I was one of the handful of teachers who went to the hospital in the dead of night after the student fell off the university’s main hostel on August 9. The university started its
own probe. We all know what the university’s probe found and recommended,” said Lahiri.
“Three-and-a-half months have passed since his death, but the university has not taken any action against those found responsible. I am protesting that.”
The probe committee’s report, which was tabled at a meeting of the anti-ragging committee on September 15, says the student “was singled out for ragging” on the night of August 9 and the ragging was “carried out in a systematic planned manner” at the main hostel.
The student was allegedly thrown off the second-floor balcony of the hostel the same night. He died early next morning.
The committee recommended various degrees of punishment for those it held responsible for the torment.
“But instead of any action, all we have seen is the shuttling of the report between the anti-ragging committee and the anti-ragging squad. How long will the parents of the deceased student wait for justice?” Lahiri said on Thursday afternoon.
Lahiri said he withdrew the protest around 8pm after officiating vice-chancellor Buddhadeb Sau assured him of action based on what the anti-ragging committee says after examining the report.
Calls and text messages from this newspaper to Sau failed to elicit any response.
The father of the deceased student told The Telegraph: “The protest should have taken place much earlier. I am extremely disappointed with the university administration. They could not protect my son, who died because the university had not put in place certain regulatory mechanisms. Now they are delaying announcing the punishment for those responsible for the death.”
