India News | State Govt Set Up Committee Visits JU Campus, Seeks Certain Inputs on Anti-ragging Measures
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The fact-finding committee set up by the West Bengal government to find out if any "administrative and infrastructural lapses" resulted in the death of a first-year undergraduate student at the Jadavpur University hostel on Tuesday visited the varsity campus and talked to officials.
Kolkata, Aug 29 (PTI) The fact-finding committee set up by the West Bengal government to find out if any "administrative and infrastructural lapses" resulted in the death of a first-year undergraduate student at the Jadavpur University hostel on Tuesday visited the varsity campus and talked to officials.
Three members of the committee consisting of senior Education department officials Chandrani Tudu, Jayasree Roy Choudhury and Sibaji Ghosh - met Jadavpur University Registrar Snehamanju Basu at her office and sought certain infrastructure-related information.
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Basu told PTI that the members sought certain details from JU authorities in a week's time with regard to the number of hostel inmates, the number of seats in a hostel, the admission procedure to hostels and which anti-ragging steps are already in place in the premier higher educational institution.
"They have given a form where certain details are to be listed - like number of hostels, seats and actual and estimated numbers of last five years," the senior JU official added.
"We will compile all these inputs for submission to the committee within the given time. We have passed on the queries to concerned departments already," she added.
Roy Choudhury told reporters, "We have given requisition for certain information regarding hostel and university infrastructure. Whenever we get the reply, we will submit follow-up recommendations."
She said the queries include the functioning of the anti-ragging squad, the officials in charge of the squad, when the squad goes on vigil, how many security guards are in campus and hostels, how many areas are covered by CCTV.
"We will focus on both administrative lapses and infrastructure lapses," she said. The team also inspected the boys' main hostel where the first-year undergraduate student had fallen from the second floor on August 9 night and died hours later on August 10 after being subjected to intense ragging by hostel seniors.
The committee, which was formed on August 17, had been asked to submit its report in two weeks.
A 17-year-old first-year student fell off the second-floor balcony of the JU boys' hostel on August 9 night and died on August 10. There were allegations that the first-year UG student had fallen after being ragged and sexually abused by seniors for hours.
In another development, the JU authorities called an all-stakeholders meeting on September 1 to discuss steps for combating ragging, bullying and any inappropriate conduct on the main campus as well as in hostels.
Officiating Vice-Chancellor Buddhadeb Sau told PTI the decision to call a meeting of all stakeholders on an urgent basis has been taken as requested by a section of students.
"I had told the students that the VC and Registrar will hold meetings with them this week and discuss ways how their views can be accommodated by the university. But they insisted on a definite assurance for an all-stakeholders meeting first. So I had to agree and accordingly, the all-stakeholders meeting will be held first on September 1," Sau said.
As Sau was leaving the campus on Monday evening, members of the Arts Faculty Students Union along with others urged him to have a discussion on the issue of involving all stakeholders for taking policy decisions on university matters like the installation of CCTV at strategic points.
"The students community are important stakeholder in the university. We also want an end to evil practices like ragging... We want a thorough and fair discussion on the entire issue which has to be taken by all stakeholders, not a select few like varsity officials and section of faculty," said Joyadrita, an AFSU member.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)