Fresher's death due to ragging: admits JU in internal report

Immense psychological and physical ragging led to the death of a fresher of Kolkata’s iconic Jadavpur University (JU) on August 10, the internal probe committee of the university has admitted in its investigation report.

However, in the report submitted by the internal probe committee to the office of the JU’s interim vice-president on Friday evening, there was no mention about the circumstances that ultimately led to the tragedy.

While the preliminary investigation by the homicide department of the Kolkata Police suggests that there were instances of the now-deceased fresher being stripped or branded as a “gay” because of his hesitant approach in interacting with fellow female students, there was no such mention in the internal report of the university’s own probe committee.

The internal probe report has only suggested that the deceased student was under some kind of mental pressure before the mishap took place.

It has also admitted that there were similar instances of ragging within the university campus especially at the students’ hostel which incidentally or coincidentally did not take such a tragic turn.

The internal report has also remained silent on why former students of the university could continue occupying the students’ hostel even months after their passing out and virtually acted as the final word in accommodation-
related administrative decisions about the hostel.

Incidentally, the former student of masters in mathematics of JU, Saurav Chaudhuri, who was the first to be arrested in this connection, has also been accused of playing the role of the final decision-maker as regards to such accommodation-related administrative decisions.

A section of the JU insiders admit that the internal report of the university’s own probe committee appears to be more of an indirect admission of administrative helplessness to control the continuing unruliness, which this time had led to the untimely death of a dream.