Kolkata’s iconic Jadavpur University (JU) is in the midst of a controversy again after the Dean of Students, Subinoy Chakraborty, suddenly tendered his resignation on the morning of Sunday, August 20. Chakraborty was heading the internal committee on campus that is probing the ragging related death of a fresher on August 10. The fresher was allegedly being ragged by a former student who had passed out in 2022 but was still reportedly staying on campus. The accused student has since been arrested and charged with murder by Kolkata police.
Questions are being raised about the Dean's resignation as the internal committee is in the middle of conducting a probe. The committee has also admitted that the death of the fresher was due to the immense psychological ragging and harassment by a section of senior students before his death. So far, a total of 12 individuals have been arrested so far in connection with the case.
Although Chakraborty has refrained from giving any reaction to the media on what prompted him to resign, sources in JU said that he attributed personal reasons to the decision. His resignation also coincides with the appointment of Buddhadeb Sau, a faculty member with the mathematics department of JU, as the interim vice-chancellor of the university by Governor CV Ananda Bose, who by virtue of his chair is also the chancellor of JU.
JU sources also say that the resignation of the Dean at this juncture poses great uncertainty for the administrative activities of the university, which ultimately got its interim vice- chancellor after operating in a headless state for quite some time for now. Besides not having a permanent vice-chancellor for quite some time, one of the two posts of pro-vice-chancellors of JU is also lying vacant for quite some time.