The warden of the two Jadavpur University hostels, where a section of first-year students allegedly smashed the gates and CCTV cameras to protest the tweak in timings last week, said on Sunday that they took the measure drawing lessons from the death of a first-year student in 2023.
Some first-year students started to protest the JU authorities’ decision to close
the hostel gates by 10pm and the door of the terrace during the night, late on Thursday night.
“Measures like segregating the hostels for the first-year students, closing the gates of the hostels by 10pm and closing the terrace door during the night were taken for the safety of the first-year students. We all know that a first-year who was a resident of a hostel had died two years ago. We don’t want that to repeat,” said Diganta Saha, the warden of the New Boys’ Hostel and the Old PG Hostel of Jadavpur University.
Saha, who is also a professor in the computer science and engineering department at JU, said that the JU authorities should apprise the guardians of the students allegedly involved in smashing the gates, dismantling the CCTV cameras and putting locks on the gates on the first floor of the administrative headquarters leading to the vice-chancellor’s office of what happened on Thursday night.
“The guardians should know what happened in the name of protest. If we don’t call them (guardians) and take steps for such acts of vandalism, these first-year students cannot be controlled,” Saha told The Telegraph on Sunday.
JU appointed a professor as the hostel warden following a prod from the UGC, which visited the campus in the aftermath of the death of the first-year student.
The university authorities had last year earmarked the two hostels — the New Boys’ Hostel and Old PG Hostel — located on the campus, for the first-year students so the freshers did not have to stay in JU main hostel located outside the campus where a first-year student was allegedly ragged by the senior student hours before his death on August 10, 2023.
The UGC had recommended segregation of the hostel for first-year students as part of anti-ragging measures in 2009.
It took JU 14 years to segregate the hostel for the first-year students that too after the death of a first-year student.
The CCTV cameras were installed at the hostels in September 2023, following the incident.
JU’s officiating VC Bhaskar Gupta had said on Friday that “acts of vandalism” were not acceptable.
“Students can make demands and we are ready to listen to them. But in the name of protests, they cannot resort to acts of vandalism...,” he had said.
“The measures like closing the gates by 10pm and keeping the door of the terrace open till midnight were adopted following a discussion in a meeting that had two student representatives. Still, a section of the first-year students resorted to vandalism in the name of protests,” the hostel warden had said.
Rajeyshwar Sinha, a professor in the Bengali department and a member of the university’s hostel distribution committee, wondered how could they put a lock on the gate that leads to the office of the VC.
The first-year students unlocked the gate early on Friday after some senior students intervened.
JU VC has called a meeting of the students’ welfare board on Monday to discuss the demands for more lights and fans inside their hostels raised by the students.
“If the JU authorities in Monday’s meeting accept the demand about keeping the door of the terrace open through the night, then we will propose that the height of the parapet be raised to 10ft to prevent any untoward incident,” Saha said.