Campus can't be governed with police help: JU

Don't want to miss the best from Business Standard?

Faced with criticism from certain quarters for not calling the police during heckling of Union minister Babul Supriyo by students at Jadavpur University on Thursday, authorities of the institute on Saturday said the campus cannot be governed with the help of state law enforcing machinery.

In a statement, JU Registrar Snehamanju Basu said the chain of events at the campus on Thursday was 'unfortunate'.

The university believes that the campus cannot be "administered with the help of police which provokes adverse implication", it said.

Basu claimed that Supriyo and Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, who had reached the institute when the minister was being heckled, could leave the campus after the agitating students were persuaded by the teachers and other employees and not due to the intervention of the police.

"The university believes in the tradition of preserving free speech. We never anticipated that such a thing will happen," she said.

The governor had described the incident of students demonstrating in front of his car on the university campus that evening as a failure on part of the state police.

West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh had criticised Vice-Chancellor Suranjan Das for not calling the police to tackle the situation.

Even senior state minister Subrata Mukherjee said the VC had committed a mistake by not calling in the police when Supriyo was being heckled.

The state government, however, supported the VC's stand of not calling the police inside the campus.

While "the incident that occurred in connection with the visit of Hon'ble minister Babul Supriyo to attend a programme was extremely unfortunate... equally unfortunate was the incident of vandalism which occurred that evening," the statement said.

The registrar was referring to the vandalising of a union room and arts faculty building by a group of outsiders, allegedly ABVP workers, chanting 'Jai Shri Ram'.

The statement said, it is regrettable that the governor's car was obstructed by the agitating students and "The university does not approve of such actions."
Asked by PTI if the university sent any report to the Governor and Chancellor Jagdeep Dhankhar about Thursday's incident, Basu said, "We have not been asked to send any report to Raj Bhavan."