Arrested Jadavpur University students released, VC said he may have been killed

Kolkata: Jadavpur University Vice Chancellor Abhijit Chakraborty on Wednesday said he might have been killed had not the police come to his rescue by forcibly lifting the gherao, shortly after the 35 arrested students were freed by the police early today.

The students had taken the VC and Registrar Pradip Ghose hostage demanding an independent probe into sexual harassment of a girl student inside a boy's hostel on August 28.

"It was a life-threatening situation for me and other members of the executive council who were under gherao. I fear I would have been killed had the police not come," Chakrabarti said.

He said that the gherao was a planned conspiracy by a group or groups of people against him and to disrupt the functioning of the institute.

After the arrested 35 students were freed, the agitating students lifted the blockade of Jadavpur police station on the condition that an independent probe would be done on the alleged sexual harrassment of the girl student.

All the 35 students were released on personal bond, police sources here said.

"There were people from outside who came to the campus and joined the protests. We heard them saying reinforcements are coming from outside and none of the teachers could recognise the protesters," Chakrabarti said, adding, he saw students hurling abuses at him and the rest of the teachers," the VC said.

"We had no other option but to call the police to rescue us. When the police was taking me out of my office late in the night I saw people attacking the police and threatening to take me away. I am an eye-witness to it. I have never seen them in the campus. I do not who they were," the VC said.

The VC and the Registrar said that the authorities were ready to sit for a discussion with the agitating students for ending the impasse.

Student union leaders said they would chalk out a fresh course of action and threatened that agitation would continue till the authorities apologised for bringing in police inside the campus and resort to lathicharge to "break a democratic movement."

Some students lodged a police complaint against the vice-chancellor and Jadavpur Police Station OC Vijay Kumar Singh, accusing them of molesting girl students while forcibly lifting the gherao in the early hours, DC (SSD) Santosh Pandey said.