The 16 Jadavpur University students summoned by police for questioning in the molestation case that was the trigger for the campus agitation since last week said on Wednesday that the complaint was “false”.

The students, all from the engineering department, had been served notices to appear at Jadavpur police station.

Police sources quoted the students as saying that a man accompanying the complainant was “heckled” outside a boys’ hostel on the night of August 28 but the girl, a student of JU, wasn’t molested.

“All six of them recounted seeing shadows in a room on the night of the incident and using their cell phone torches to find a man and a girl student there. They said the man came out of the room first, followed by the girl. The man was assaulted but the students claimed ignorance about the identity of the person/persons who beat him up,” a police officer said.

The statements of the 16 students, who were accompanied by their lawyers, were individually recorded over six hours till late on Wednesday.

None of the JU agitation leaders who had accused members of the internal complaints committee’s of being biased against the molestation victim was willing to comment on their fellow students’ allegation that the case was built on falsehood.

“Now that the case is with the police, we shouldn’t comment on it,” said Sudhanya Pal, an undergraduate philosophy student who was part of the delegation that had met the governor and sought justice for the complainant.

According to the complaint received by the police on September 2, the girl had been allegedly dragged into the boys’ hostel on the night of August 28 and molested. There was no mention of any male friend in her complaint.

Sources said she named one person as the prime accused but his identity didn’t match with the university records. The police have asked the university to confirm whether any person by that name had studied there over the past five years.

Senior police officers in Lalbazar said the girl had specifically mentioned two men and referred to the rest of the accused as “others”.

He said the police zeroed in on the 16 who were interrogated on Wednesday by talking to “neutral witnesses”. One officer said the 16 were thought to be involved in the incident “in various capacities” — as accused, suspect or witness.

“An identity sketch has been drawn of the prime accused who, according to the girl’s statement, has reddish highlights in his hair,” said an officer of the detective department, which is handling the probe.

“The students were summoned under Section 41A of the CrPC, which says that a police officer can issue a notice directing a person against whom a reasonable complaint has been made or credible information has been received or a reasonable suspicion exists that he had committed a cognisable offence.”