JU death case: Entry of 6 students barred

Kolkata: Two months after the Executive Council (EC) of Jadavpur University took the resolutions to restrict the entry of students who are currently in custody in connection to the death of the first-year undergraduate student on intervening night of August 9, the varsity authorities have published a circular mentioning the names of the six students.

The circular stated the six students including Dipsekhar Dutta (second year), Manotosh Ghosh (second year), Md Asif Afzal Ansari (fourth year), Ankan Sarkar (third year), Satyabrata Roy (fourth year) and Md Arif (third year) will not be allowed to enter the university campus, including the hostels, until they are duly discharged from all the allegations levelled against them.

According to teachers, the decision was taken at the September 26 meeting and it took the varsity authorities two months to issue a circular based on the resolution. They claim that this could be made possible after the protests and pressure mounted by them on the authority to reveal the action taken by them against the accused students.

However, interim V-C Buddhadeb Sau said that the permission for the publication of the circular signed by the Registrar was not taken from him. The decisions taken by EC on September 26 was supposed to be finalised in the meeting which was scheduled to take place on November 24 but could not be held after it was not approved by the state Higher Education department.

Recently, the professor of International Relation department of JU Iman Kalyan Lahiri had staged a hunger strike demanding the authorities to take the action against the accused as per the University Grant Commission (UGC) regulation. This has also been a long standing demand of the teachers’ association JUTA who have been constantly raising the question on the action taken by authorities with regards to the unfortunate death of a minor student.