A four-member team of UGC which came to Jadavpur University to take stock of the anti-ragging mechanism in the wake of the death of a first-year undergraduate student owing to an alleged ragging at the main hostel, criticised the university for not having anti-ragging monitoring cell, said an official of the university.
The team also expressed its displeasure over starting an anti-ragging awareness campaign several months after the admission of the first-year students, said the official.
The four-member team came on Monday morning. They called registrar Snehamanju Basu, dean of students Rajat Roy and other hostel officials for questioning regarding the death of the 17-year-old boy.
The student died in the early hours of August 10 after being allegedly ragged in the main hostel a day before.
In an interim report sent to the UGC last week, the university’s internal committee probing the death stated that the minor was ragged.
On Monday the UGC team met the registrar, the dean of students and the pro-vice-chancellor separately in a room at the vice-chancellor’s secretariat.
“The team expressed its dissatisfaction over the fact that the university does not have an anti-ragging monitoring cell. It was also not satisfied with the fact that the anti-ragging awareness campaigns are started at the university at least two months after the admission. They wanted to know why such campaigns are not started immediately,” the official told Metro.
This newspaper reported on August 18 that the UGC said Jadavpur University’s report following the death of a first-year student a week before mostly mentioned the “reactive approaches adopted in the matter rather than proactive measures.”
Manish R. Joshi, secretary of the UGC, sent an email to registrar Basu saying the commission is “not satisfied” with the response submitted by the university.
A complaint on the UGC’s anti-ragging helpline was lodged on August 11.
The members of the UCG team left the campus at 7 pm.
Calls and text messages to the officiating VC Buddhdeb Sau and registrar Snehamanju Basu from this newspaper on Monday evening failed to elicit any response.
The visiting UGC team also met the teachers of the department where the first-year student studied.
Education minister Bratya Basu said on Monday: “UGC team can always come for such a fact-finding exercise. Our department also sent a fact-finding team last week. The vice-chancellor handpicked by the governor must be able to answer their queries”.
