Three more persons were arrested on Friday in connection with the death of a first-year undergraduate student who was allegedly ragged and sexually harassed, taking the total number of senior students and ex-students apprehended in the case to 12, reports PTI.
The deceased, 17, who was a resident of Bagula in Nadia district, was a student of Bengali Honours. He fell around 11.45 PM from a second-floor balcony of the main hostel building on August 9. The student died while undergoing treatment at a hospital the next day.
Police said that three who were arrested hail from Purba Bardhaman, Nadia and Murshidabad districts of West Bengal. While one is currently pursuing a PhD course from a private institute and the other one was a post-graduate chemistry student. The third one is a fourth-year computer science student, according to police.
They were summoned to the Jadavpur police station and questioned during the day, and were arrested as their replies were “incoherent”.
Earlier, nine former and current students of JU were arrested in connection with the case and are now in police custody.
Meanwhile, the 67-year-old premier university of West Bengal has also sent an exhaustive report to the University Grants Commission (UGC) on multiple queries about the incident, after directives from the statutory body.
The death has also stirred a political row with BJP alleging that the varsity needs to be freed from “anti-national elements”.
Senior BJP leader and leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on Friday along with other party MLAs, met the family of the boy in Nadia district.
“We are with the family and will help them in whichever way they want. What has happened is unfortunate, but the state administration cannot escape responsibility,” Adhikari said.
Hitting out at ultra-left student unions at the Jadavpur University, a day after members of one of such organisations, All India Revolutionary Students Federation (AIRSF), and the BJP Yuva Morcha clashed outside the varsity where Adhikari had gone to address a public meeting, he said, “the anti-national forces need to be ousted from the JU campus.”
“This anarchy cannot be tolerated. What has happened is completely anarchic and unacceptable. Next week when the assembly session resumes, we will force Education Minister Bratya Basu to table the action taken report in the assembly,” the BJP leader said, as quoted by PTI.
Adhikari on Friday lodged a police complaint alleging a “premeditated attack” on him by the AIRSF workers accusing them of being a part of a group that made JU “a den of anti-national and anti-social activities”.
“They harbour anti-establishment and secessionist ideologies: who are always criticizing the government, but at the same time clinging on to the institution, even after their formal association is over, to keep on enjoying the subsidised benefits meant for the students,” he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Adhikari, who enjoys Z category security, alleged in the complaint that he was suddenly attacked by seven-eight people as he was leaving the venue.
“Though I do not know their names but I will be able to identify them if they are brought before me,” he said.