Jalpaiguri: Students of Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College withdrew their 17-day-old strike on Monday following a meeting with members of the inquiry committee that was held here on Sunday.

The withdrawal of the strike has led to restoration of normality at the institution where classes were suspended and even administrative activities came to a halt in the past three weeks.

"The students unlocked all the entry points of the college around 11.30am and after that, the faculties and employees, including me and Dipak Kumar Kole (a faculty member), entered the campus. Normality is returning to the college. We will finish the pending works first and hope that all regular activities will resume soon," said Amitabha Roy, the principal.

Sources said the college was cleaned and the administrative unit functioned on Monday.

"It would take a couple of days for academic activities to start in a full-fledged manner," said a source.

On the campus, problem started on March 15 after some first-year students had complained that they were ragged by a section of second-year students.

This made Kole, a member of the anti-ragging committee and a faculty of computer science, visit hostels and check out the veracity of the complaint. It was alleged that during his visit, he had assaulted two second-year students, who then launched the strike from the following day.

However, during the agitation, the first-year students filed complaints with police against some seniors, accusing them of ragging. To conceal the crime, the strike has been called, they had said.

Those on strike, however, demanded that Kole be removed from the institution. Later, the authorities filed separate complaints against them with the police, alleging ransacking of government properties on the campus.

As the impasse continued, the state education department formed a five-member committee led by Amalendu Basu, the director of the technical education.

The committee members came to Jalpaiguri on Sunday and met the agitating students, principal of the college, the accused teacher, officials of district administration and the first year students and heard them.

"The students assured us after the meeting that they would withdraw the strike. We have conducted the hearing and now, a report would be submitted to the state government," said Debkumar Mukherjee, the vice-chancellor of Cooch Behar Panchanan Burma University, who is a member of the committee.

The students who launched the agitation have however, demanded relief from the police cases filed against some of them with strong charges like ragging and damaging government properties.

"We have withdrawn the strike and helped in restoration of normality in the college. We now want the police cases registered against us be withdrawn," said Subhasish Chanda, a second-year student.