Jadavpur University authorities have not been able to install CCTV cameras inside the campus because of “resistance from students,” a police officer quoted Rajat Roy, dean of students at the university, as saying on Thursday.
Roy was summoned to Lalbazar on Wednesday but was unable to go because students had gheraoed him. He went to the Kolkata police headquarters on Thursday afternoon after the gherao was lifted around 11am.
Roy was reportedly asked about the functioning of the university’s anti-ragging committee, if there were CCTV cameras on the campus and about the death of the first-year student.
“He said there are problems in law enforcement inside the campus because of the resistance by the students,” an officer said.
Calls from this newspaper to the dean on Thursday evening went unanswered.
The police said Roy had received a call at 10.05pm on August 9, around one-and-a-half hours before the first-year student had fallen to death.
Roy reportedly told the police on Thursday that the caller — a student — had informed him about another student being “politicised” in the hostel.
The Telegraph had reported last week that Roy had said that after answering the call, he passed on the information to the superintendent of the hostel, Tapan Kumar Jana.
“He (superintendent) had not reported back immediately. Later, he told me
that he had checked (the hostel) after receiving my call but apparently did not find anything amiss,” Roy had told this newspaper last week.
Officers said on Thursday that Roy told them that the hostel superintendent had reported back around midnight, after the incident had happened.
The police said Jana had told the investigators that although he went to the hostel after receiving the call, he was “scared” to enter.
“If need be we will summon him (Jana) again,” an officer said.
The police on Thursday questioned a taxi driver who was hired to take the first-year student to hospital.
“He (the taxi driver) said he was hired by a few men who took him inside the university campus and lifted a young boy who had only a towel on him into the taxi. He said the boy was bleeding profusely,” said one of the investigators.
Agitation
After the JU authorities issued a circular announcing a series of restrictions on the campus, students from various organisations launched protests against “surveillance on students”.
