Jadavpur University reshuffles anti-ragging committee

Kolkata: Jadavpur University (JU) has reshuffled its anti-ragging committee amid controversies surrounding the mysterious death of a fresher of the prestigious institute. The first year student of Bengali honours had died on August 10 after falling from the balcony of a students’ hostel. It is suspected that he became a victim of ragging.

In a notification announcing the rejig of its anti-ragging committee, the authorities have given the names, mobile numbers and email contacts of the members of the panel.

JU insiders said the decision to reshuffle the anti-ragging committee was taken in the wake of the findings following the fresher's death that several members of the previous panel were inactive.

“We evaluated the performance of the previous committee and based on that, we decided to reshuffle the panel,” a JU insider said.

The committee has representations from both the faculty and the students’ unions.

It is learnt that the first meeting of the reshuffled committee will be held on Friday in which it will be determined what new steps can be taken to prevent incidents of ragging on the university campus.

The university authorities have already taken some decisions to prevent ragging such as shifting first-year students to a separate hostel, installation of 26 AI-enabled CCTV cameras on the campus, and including former defence personnel in the university’s security team.

Recently, a team from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had also visited the JU campus to find out how technology can be used to prevent events of ragging within the campus.

The ISRO team is expected to make a second visit to the university and then give its final recommendations in the matter.

However, there are uncertainties over the funds to be required for the implementation of ISRO’s recommendations since JU has no major avenues for generating its own revenue apart from fees from the students, which are very nominal.