Ban on alcohol, no entry without ID: Jadavpur University announces new rules days after student's death

Days after the death of a first-year undergraduate student on the college campus, Jadavpur University (JU) has banned alcohol inside the varsity premises and said no entry will be given to students without valid identity proof, India Today reported on Thursday. The varsity has issued an order announcing new rules that would come into effect immediately.

The university said that anyone who wants to enter the college premises between 8 pm to 7 am will have to produce a valid ID issued by Jadavpur University. In the absence of a university-issued ID card, the individual will have to show valid proof of identity and also provide details of the person s/he is going to meet.

Besides this, vehicles - two-wheelers or four-wheelers - must have JU stickers issued by the university. And the use of narcotics and alcohol has also been prohibited on the campus.

The college has also announced that it would install CCTV cameras at strategic points. "CCTV cameras will be installed at strategic points like gates, main hostel campus gates, and adjoining university campus gates and streets," Snehomonju Basu, registrar of Jadavpur University, said while speaking to India Today. He clarified, "No CCTVs will be installed in classrooms or corridors. But campus will be under CCTV surveillance from now."

This comes just a day after West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose called university authorities for an emergency meeting at Raj Bhavan in the wake of the death of a student of Jadavpur University.

The student of Bengali honours reportedly fell from the second-floor balcony of the main hostel building around 11:45 pm on August 9 and died while undergoing treatment at a hospital the next day. His family alleged that ragging on the campus led to his death. The Kolkata Police have so far arrested nine people in connection with the death.

A city court remanded the six – three current students and three former ones – to police custody till August 28, news agency PTI reported on Wednesday. According to the report, they were suspected to be involved in the alleged ragging and sexual molestation of the student leading to his death. The police have taken cognisance of JU students' social media posts, including photographs, which suggest that there was an element of sexual harassment in the ragging of the deceased, the report said.

The three former students of the varsity had been staying at the hostel illegally and fled Kolkata after the death of the student, a police officer told PTI. "We arrested them (three ex-students) last night after they gave incoherent replies to our officers during questioning as multiple raids were conducted at different places in Purba Medinipur and South 24 Parganas districts where they had fled. It seems that they were actively involved in the death of the student," the news agency quoted the officer as saying.

The West Bengal government has formed a four-member committee to probe into the administrative lapses connected with the death. The committee has been asked to submit its report in two weeks. 

Today, the West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights (WBCPCR) claimed that the university authorities were trying to cover up their incompetence. The commission said it felt that the response reflected the "gross insincerity of the University administration where they have tried to shrug off all responsibilities" of the incident "instead of accepting and acknowledging their failure and failing to chart out a road map towards systemic reforms in order to eradicate ragging and other malpractices from the University campus".

(With inputs from Anirban Sinha Roy)