The administration of Jadavpur University has finally taken a decision to establish a separate hostel for first-year students.
This decision comes following the alleged suicide of Swapnodeep Kundu, a fresher, reportedly due to ragging when the student community of the college demanded that ex-students of the university be removed from the main hostel building.
In addition, the university authorities have also given strict instructions to the former students of the university to vacate the main hostel building within the next three days. These former students have been occupying the main hotel for boys as "guests".
Among academic circles, students and teachers alike feel that the move for a separate hostel for fresher students, which was much-awaited and long-demanded has come finally – but it has come at the cost of a fresher’s life, which was the victim of immense psychological ragging.
After a former MSc student at JU, Sourav Chowdhury, was arrested in connection to Swapnadeep’s death, a section of former students of the university still inhabiting the main hostel building despite graduating has surfaced.
Investigation revealed that Chowdhury was not only the ringleader behind the ragging at the hostel but also had the final say in all administrative decisions related to accommodation, reports IANS.
Two current second-year students, apart from Chowdhury, one studying Economics and the other studying International Relations, have also been arrested by the police in connection to the case.
Having a separate hostel facility for the first-year students is the best way to break the ragging chain that has become rampant over the years, say academics.
"Once one group of fresher students is kept immune from the psychological and physical ragging by their seniors, they will also not develop the tendency of doing the same with their juniors when they themselves become seniors. Thus, the ragging- chain will be broken. This system of separate hostels for first-year students had been a successful model adopted by several reputed universities nationally," a city-based academician pointed out.