Jadavpur University has appealed to the West Bengal government to quicken the process for sanctioning the posts of 35 additional contractual security personnel inside the campus. This comes after an incident on March 1 where state education minister Bratya Basu was allegedly heckled and students were injured after protests on campus turned violent. Questions were raised by the Calcutta High Court regarding the campus’ security. According to an official of the university, the administration has a fund crunch, and have asked the concerned department to clear the matter as soon as possible by the end of this month. The official said that a proposal was sent to the state government last month for 35 security staff to be appointed for a monthly salary of Rs 15,000, adding that given the incident, a meeting was held with the state last week regarding the proposal. The issue of additional security came up after the death of a first-year undergraduate student in the university’s main hostel in 2023, the official said. SFI state committee in-charge Subhadip Bandopadhyay told The Indian Express, “ We have asked the university to increase the number of permanent guards but they never took steps. The university says that there is a fund crunch . How come the state government is not taking any steps to resolve the fund crunch? We feel that the Centre and the state government want to destroy public education. Why are they not arresting Bratya Basu, since that day, he was the biggest threat for students? We have no issue with the number of permanent guards being increased in the university.”
