Days after a first-year student was found dead allegedly due to ragging by his seniors, Kolkata’s Jadavpur University (JU) has announced new measures, including making identity cards mandatory and planning to install CCTVs at “strategic points”. This comes in the wake of widespread condemnation of the death of the 17-year-old Bengali (Honours) student last week.

So far, the West Bengal police have arrested nine people in connection with the case. The incident has snowballed into a huge political row in the state, with parties blaming each other.

What happened at Jadavpur University? What steps have the authorities introduced after the tragedy? Why has the incident triggered a political slugfest in West Bengal? We explain.

The JU ragging horror

The fresher was subjected to “intense ragging” for 120 minutes on the night of 9 August before he fell from the second-floor balcony of the JU’s Main Hostel, which is located outside the campus, Times of India (TOI) reported citing the police.

As per the report, the first-year student was summoned to room 104 on the fourth floor of the A-2 block after 9 pm and forced to “sign” a letter that framed another student, not a resident of the hostel, for ragging.

“The letter was then written by two seniors. One of the main accused claimed that the signature on the letter was that of the deceased minor student. However, we have our doubts about it,” a police official, who is involved in the investigation, told The Quint.

As per TOI, around 10 pm, the minor was summoned to another floor, leading to his eventual fall. During the night, the first-year student was made to go to three different rooms where he was ragged.

The accused seniors allegedly told the undergraduate student that “he was gay” and that they wanted to “liberate him from homosexuality”, reported The Quint.

Speaking to the digital news outlet, the police officer revealed, “As the ragging continued, the student was brought down to the third floor where he was forced to give an ‘introduction’. He was told (by the seniors) that he was gay”.

“He was asked to submit evidence against this claim. Then, at around 11.30 pm, he was taken back to room number 70 where he was forcibly undressed.”

The minor was allegedly forced to strip and “asked to take the towel off and parade and run through the balcony naked”, as per The Quint report.

The boy fell from the balcony around 11. 45 pm and succumbed to his injuries while undergoing treatment at a hospital the next day, reported news agency PTI.

The police have filed a murder case on the basis of the complaint filed by the victim’s father.

Nine arrested

Out of those arrested, four are former students of JU and the rest are currently studying in the university. They have been remanded to police custody until 28 August, reported The Quint.

Alumni Sourav Chakraborty, Saptak Kamilya, Suman Naskar and Asit Sardar; second-year students Deepsekhar Dutta (19) and Manotosh Ghosh (20); third-year students Md Arif and Ankan Sardar; and fourth-year student Md Asif Azmal have been arrested in the case, according to the TOI report.

The police said that it was Sourav (the prime accused) and Saptak’s idea to force the victim to write the letter, the newspaper report added. However, the first-year student “could not” write it.

The victim, a resident of Bagula in Nadia district, had joined the hostel on 6 August but had quickly asked his father to take him back, as per Frontline magazine. “My son had told me that they were scaring him. I had decided to bring him back on Friday (11 August), but they ended his life before that,” the deceased student’s father was quoted as saying by the magazine.

JU introduces measures

On Thursday (17 August), the varsity authorities issued a circular introducing various measures to tighten security on the campus.

Identity cards, issued by the university, have been made compulsory for entering the campus from 8 pm to 7 am to curb the entry of outsiders, as per Indian Express.

In the case of no college-issued ID card, people have to furnish valid proof of identity and provide details of the individual they will visit inside the campus, reported India Today.

Vehicles, including two-wheelers and four-wheelers, have to bear the stickers issued by the university from now.

Registrar (JU) Snehamanju Basu said that CCTVs will be installed at the different entry and exit points for monitoring. “CCTVs will be installed at certain strategic points, which will include several entry and exit gates. However, since the electrical engineering department will take a call on the issue of installation with the firm under contract, the entire exercise will take some time,” she was quoted as saying by PTI.

However, Basu said that any call to install CCTVs throughout the campus and in hostel compounds can only be taken by JU’s Executive Council (EC), the body responsible for key decision-making in the varsity. The EC’s work has halted in the absence of a vice-chancellor for months, reported the news agency.

The use of alcohol and narcotics has been banned inside the JU campus. “Use of narcotics/alcohol or other illegal substances and any illegal acts in any part of the campus is strictly prohibited. If anyone is found with such activity, he/she will be prosecuted as per law,” Indian Express cited the circular as saying.

Political blame game

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has blamed the Left, reportedly calling JU “atankapur” (terror house), for the incident.

“They don’t allow the police inside; they don’t allow CCTV cameras to be installed… The boy’s father had told me when I had called up, that he used to cry and tell him that he was being tortured… Who are these people? They are Marxists. They sometimes ally themselves with the BJP, and sometimes with the Congress. They are still Trinamool’s number one enemy. They have no shame, no conscience,” she was quoted as saying by Frontline.

On 17 August, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) government set up a four-member fact-finding committee in connection with the minor’s death. The panel will submit its report within two weeks.

West Bengal Govt has constituted a 4 member fact-finding committee in connection with the death of a student of Jadavpur University. The committee will submit their report within two weeks. pic.twitter.com/l1kdwCx7Gr — ANI (@ANI) August 17, 2023

Refuting the allegations, CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty hit out at the chief minister, saying, “The unfortunate events at Jadavpur are regrettable. Stringent measures should be taken against ragging. Why hasn’t her (Banerjee’s) government taken any action against it? During the Left’s tenure, anti-ragging laws were in place. Why has she destroyed all those laws?”

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has targeted the state government and university administration over the incident, while the Congress has reportedly alleged a “lack of law and order and administration” in the state.

The tragedy also triggered protests from various student bodies in Kolkata.

JU under scanner

The West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights (WBCPCR) pulled up JU authorities for allegedly trying to shirk responsibility for the first-year student’s death.

“The Commission feels that this response reflects the gross insincerity of the University administration where they have tried to shrug off all responsibilities of the said incident instead of accepting and acknowledging their failure and failing to chart out a road map towards systemic reforms in order to eradicate ragging and other malpractices from the University campus,” PTI quoted the statement as saying.

“The Commission is extremely unhappy with the reply sent by the Registrar of Jadavpur University to the show-cause notice sent by the Commission regarding the recent incident of the death of the minor student in the main boys’ hostel of the University,” it added.

Meanwhile, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has also reprimanded JU for submitting a “generic” report on the death of the student. “The report was found to be generic in nature. It basically mentioned the reactive approaches adopted in the matter rather than proactive measures taken to curb the menace of ragging,” a source told PTI. It has sought a compliance report from JU authorities.

With inputs from agencies