Jadavpur, September 09: The students of Jadavpur University on Wednesday staged a sit-in demonstration against the university’s Executive Committee decision to install 16 CCTVs on the university campus.
Terming the step a serious infringement of their freedom, members of six student bodies gheraoed the EC members in the afternoon, demanding the committee to revoke its decision.
“Why should they spend Rs 20 lakh on CCTVs when we get terrible food in hostels, have problem in getting drinking water and are not provided wi-fi internet connection in hostels?” asked Palash Ghosh, the General Secretary of the Engineering Department of the university. He said whenever we ask the authorities to upgrade the infrastructure, they say there is fund crunch.
The EC has also issued a model code of conduct, by which the students will have to show their identity cards at the time of entering the college.
The protesting students alleged that professor Goutam Gupta, former head of the Department of Economics and a member of the EC, abused and assaulted the guards when he was denied entry in the campus on Janmashtmi. “How can they impose the code of conduct on us when the EC member himself failed to follow it? said Lokeshwari Dasgupta, a post-graduate student belonging to the United Students’ Democratic Forum.
Dasgupta further said if the authorities are keen to make premises safe they should provide a fence around the mens’ hostel lake which took a life on Tuesday.
The EC thinks the students are misinformed and are getting unnecessarily agitated over an issue which does not fall within their jurisdiction. “CCTVs are absolutely essential for the security of the campus and in a month they will be installed at the gates and other strategic locations ,’ said VC Pradip Ghosh.
——–Agencies