Kolkata: A dozen students gathered outside the locked administration building at Jadavpur University with posters in Bangla demanding ‘Justice’ and a ‘ragging-free’ campus. None of them really knew the 17-year-old. They never got the chance. He was found outside the main boys’ hostel on the evening of 9 August, on what would have been his second day as a first-year student at one of the country’s top institutions.
Jadavpur University’s sprawling campus has become a cradle of unrest, unease, and uncertainty with allegations of ragging and hazing, rumours of suicide, unconfirmed reports of the student’s body covered in welts and cigarette burns, and a series of protests and some arrests. One of the last remaining bastions of Left ideology in the country, Jadavpur University has witnessed several anti-establishment movements and student uprisings—starting from its fight against the mishandling of a sexual harassment case in 2014, which led to the police lathi-charge on students, to hunger strikes by protesters, to finally then-vice chancellor stepping down over the scrapping of entrance tests in 2018.
Now, the university is back in the news with the death by suicide.
It has renewed unresolved conversations around the brutality of hazing by seniors, the lack of security measures in the form of CCTVs and guards, and the administration’s alleged failure to clamp down on a problem that has been going on for years.
“We have four demands—investigate the case promptly, justice for the student, separate hostel for first-year students, and post-mortem report to be made public,” said third-year student Pritha Ghosh from the Arts Faculty Student Union (AFSU), which has organised an indefinite sit-in demonstration. But Jadavpur University has been without a vice-chancellor for more than two months.
Ghosh never met the student, who had left his home in Bagula, Nadia district, filled with excitement and dreams of an eventful life in Jadavpur University, only to die less than 24 hours after his arrival on the campus.
The whispers that began on the night of 9 August have grown to a crescendo— not just in classrooms but across the state. The West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights (WBCPCR) has called it an “unpardonable crime”.
Protests have spread beyond the campus with student groups and political parties—from the ruling Trinamool Congress to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and the Congress—engaging in blame games.
A UGC team is expected to arrive on the campus any day. And on the morning of 16 August, the Kolkata police arrested six students and alumni members who were reportedly in the hostel when Kundu died. The police had earlier arrested two second-year students and another former student.
The campus was relatively empty on Independence Day, but the low-hanging, grey-black, pot-bellied clouds portend the arrival of a storm. The facades of many buildings are scrawled with graffiti art—Rohith Vemula, Che Guevara, Umar Khalid, quotes of Karl Marx, Lenin, and calls for “Azadi”.
At her home in Kolkata, Brishti Majumdar is following the events unfolding in her former university. Ragging is an open secret—one that nobody wants to address, says Majumdar, who is still clearing her papers in JU.
“We have raised this issue with the administration several times. I think almost every batch does. But the outcome has been nil,” Majumdar says.
The death of the first-year student, the son of a bank employee and an ASHA worker, threatens to rip apart this shroud of silence.
The banner of Arts Faculty Students Union (AFSU), affiliated to the Left-linked Student Federation of India (SFI), has vowed not to call off their sit-in protest until they get answers. Freshly printed flexes with details about ragging and contact numbers of anti-ragging squads now dot the campus sharing space with Lenin and Marx.
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Details unclear but rumours abound
The three-storey building in the main boys’ hostel outside the campus is locked. It is a crime scene now, and first-year students who moved there less than a week ago have been shifted to the new boys’ hostel within the university campus. The remaining boarders continue to live in the main boys’ hostel amid the uneasiness.
The irony is that the dilapidated building shares a boundary with the Jadavpur Police Station. The crime occurred under the police’s nose. “But we were unable to enter the main hostel on the night of the incident. It was locked from inside. There was no security guard at the gate either,” said a police officer who did not want to be named.
It’s only after they followed a taxi coming out of the hostel that they learnt about the student at the nearest KPC Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries on 1o August.
No one knows what happened that night, but it hasn’t stopped rumours.
“I heard that when the body was found, the student did not have any clothes on. He was being ragged in room number 79 of the A1 hostel,” said a female student who did not want to be named. She said she was told about a general body meeting that was held immediately after the incident. “First-year students and everyone present [at the meeting] were told not to speak about it,” she claimed.
She added that first-year students, as part of the ragging, were made to walk on the balcony ledge by the seniors. “We saw it in the news. But no one knows what happened. Many students have fled and the rest are scared to talk.”
A letter was found in the student’s diary, but it was allegedly written by one of the arrested students. The university, too, is conducting an internal inquiry into what happened.
The university ambulance driver Rambachan Yadav, who gave his statement to the inquiry committee, was on duty that night. He was on campus when he got the first call at 11.53pm.
“I missed it. I received the next call at 11.56, and two more calls after that. When I reached the hostel at midnight, there were many students,” said Yadav. But by then, the student had been taken to the hospital in a taxi.
“I informed the university that night. I have shared the numbers I got calls from with the enquiry committee,” Yadav added.
The first person to be arrested was Sourav Chowdhury, a former student who had completed his MSc in Mathematics in 2022 but still frequented the hostel. The dead student’s father, a cooperative bank employee, had reportedly met Chowdhury when he came to drop off his son and had received assurances that he would take good care of the young student.
Based on Chowdhury’s statement, the police then arrested Dipsekhar Dutta, an economics student from Bankura district, and Manotosh Ghosh, a second-year sociology student from Hooghly district. All three have been remanded in judicial custody until 22 August.
The father lodged a complaint naming Chowdhury, following which the police registered a case under POCSO and IPC Sections 302 (murder) and 34 (criminal act by several persons with common intention). Te father had a phone conversation with his son and realised that he was being tortured and planned to take him home.
“I hope no parent has to perform the last rites of their children for seeking education,” he said. “We understood he was being tortured when we called him. Sourav was answering the calls. We knew our child was in danger. We lost him forever,” said the father.
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Students against CCTV
Another debate is raging within the hostel premises—one of surveillance versus safety. The special investigative team (SIT) probing the case has yet to reveal what happened to the student, but it found serious security lapses.
Addressing the media last week, Joint CP (Crime), Shankha Shubhra Chakrabarty, said the hostel didn’t have functioning CCTV cameras. The police have seized mobile phones of those arrested to retrieve details. A forensic report is awaited.
The hostel outside the campus is separated by blocks. A1 and A2 are for undergraduate students, while B, C, and D blocks are for post-graduate students. The entire hostel campus has only one security guard at a time. There are two cooks and one superintendent.
Students, however, are against the installation of CCTV cameras. Surveillance is not the answer, they say.
“CCTVs don’t stop ragging. If that was the case, then IITs wouldn’t have had so many cases. The rules [against ragging] need to be implemented, installation of CCTVs won’t stop this menace,” said Anustup Chakraborty, a third-year student.
Jadavpur University Registrar Snehamanju Bose said that the university hasn’t received any written complaint against ragging. Coming out of a meeting, she said, “The matter is under probe. I cannot share details of the meetings. I am an executive officer. I can only execute orders. We are also consulting lawyers.”
The Calcutta High Court is likely to hear a PIL next Monday, filed by a lawyer against the alleged incident of ragging at the university.
(Edited by Prashant)