West Bengal Governor expresses concern: ‘JU fast turning into centre for disturbance’

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The clashes led Governor Kesari Nath Tripathi to say on Saturday that the university “once known as the centre for excellence is fast turning into a centre for disturbance”.

“The authorities should take stern action against it,” Tripathi, who is also the Chancellor of the state-run varsity, said.

When asked whether he would ask for a report regarding the incident from the university’s vice-chancellor, Suranjan Das, Tripathi said, “I have not decided any such thing as of now.”

His remarks came even as the V-C said it was for the police to act against the culprits who allegedly molested the students. “We have lodged an FIR against outsiders who were caught by our students and then handed over to the police. It is the police which has to act now. It is their job to take action. We did everything on our part,” he said.

Das also put the blame on the organisers for screening Vivek Agnihotri’s political film on the campus late Friday evening “without prior permission”. “As per rules, any organisation has to take permission from us to hold programme inside the campus. But they did not take our permission to hold the event. \This organisation is not even remotely connected to the university,” he said.

Trouble began at JU when Agnihotri decided to screen his upcoming film in open-air after the alumni association cancelled the booking for an auditorium run by them.

“The (Triguna Sen) auditorium is not run by us. We have no control over it,” the V-C said.

The fracas began after the film’s screening ended late in the evening, and students from ABVP fought with activists of Left-backed student unions in which a few of them received minor injuries, officials have said.

“At around 5:15 pm, Vivek Agnihotri addressed the gathering of ABVP supporters. We couldn’t recognise anyone of them as JU students. We showed them black flags and raised slogans against the saffronisation of the institution. There was a scuffle between ABVP supporters and our students, but we backed out as we thought they should be allowed to express themselves. The film was screened peacefully without any disruption,” said Titir Chakraborty, assistant general secretary of the university’s Arts students association.

Around 8:30 pm, Titir said, ABVP supporters who had attended the screening approached her and other female students and began assaulting them. “They were saying that they don’t talk to women. They only talk to men. They pushed us and touched us inappropriately. These men started running away when other students came to our rescue. We managed to catch four of them,” said Titir, who filed the FIR along with 10 others.

Raman Trivedi, ABVP state president who met the Governor Saturday, submitted a deputation demanding the list of “false cases” filed against the four — Debashish Chaudhury, Sandeep, Partha Chakraborty and Tanmay Basak. “The V-C is biased towards the students. We met the Governor who has now sought a report from the university. We also asked him to look into the anti-national activities going on in the university,” said Raman.

WITH PTI INPUTs