The father of a first-year student college student who accompanied his son to a deposition before a fact-finding committee probing complaints of ragging, said he has told the committee to take steps so that no other student or their family members get assaulted by senior students.
The student and his parents and elder brother were allegedly beaten up on December 7 by members of the students’ union at the South Calcutta Law College when the student was asked by the college authorities to come to the campus along with his parents for a probe into his allegations of ragging.
After Wednesday’s deposition, the committee told the student not to come to the campus till he overcomes the trauma and to attend online classes.
“Apart from my son, the members of the committee also spoke to me. I told the committee members what we had to go through on December 7 is unheard of. I told the committee members to take steps so this does not happen to any other student and his family,” the father said. “Or else parents won’t feel safe to send their sons and daughters to college.”
The student, who has alleged that he “was threatened and bullied” on December 2 “to make him join the students’ union and pay subscriptions”, lodged a complaint with the UGC’s anti-ragging helpline on December 3 and the vice-principal of the college on December 5.
On December 7, the student and his family members were allegedly assaulted on the campus in the presence of the president of the governing body of the college, Askok Deb, a Trinamul MLA, and Nayna Chatterji the vice-principal of the college.
The abstract of the committee meeting held on Wednesday says special/ doubt-clearing classes for first-year students would be“conducted through Google platforms”.
“Projects for different subjects of the first semester have already been uploaded on the college website. The complainant can submit projects through online mode”, the abstract says.
The student has alleged that his and his elder brother’s smartphones were snatched by some of the assaulters.
“Police have yet to recover those phones. We earlier told the college authorities about the students who snatched the phones as I was trying to film the assault on December 7. This has been mentioned along with the assault in the FIR that my father lodged with the Kasba police station on December 7,” the student alleged.
Santanu Mitra, the chairperson of the committee, said: “The college authorities are looking into the possibility of buying him a smartphone so he can attend the online classes.”
“The committee will now speak to the accused, before drawing the final report. We will also speak to the police about the progress of the investigation,” Mitra said.
