Jadavpur University students call off hunger strike after authority brings back entrance test
Kolkata, July 10 (IBNS): An hour after the authority of Jadavpur University (JU) announced to bring back entrance test for admission in undergraduate courses, protesting students of the premier university on Tuesday late night called off their hunger strike.
"As the Executive Council (EC) of JU has brought back admission test, we are withdrawing our indefinite hunger strike after four days," a protesting student told IBNS. They were fasting for the past 96 hours.
After an hour-long EC meeting at university's administrative building, registrar of the institute declared that based on the results of entrance test and board examination, fresh admission process will be conducted in the six faculties of JU's Arts department.
University's Vice-Chancellor (VC), Suranjan Das, and pro VC, Pradip Ghosh, detached themselves from the resolution, while registrar of the institute, Chiranjib Bhattacharya, did not take part in the EC meeting.
Explaining their decision, JU VC Suranjan Das told IBNS, "As we did not agree with the proposal, we detached ourselves from the resolution."
"In such situation, it's really very tough to continue the administration at Jadavpur University and me and pro-VC will appeal for an exemption before West Bengal governor and university's Chancellor Keshari Nath Tripathi," Das said.
Earlier on July 4, the EC of Jadavpur University announced to scrap entrance examination for admission in undergraduate courses in the university's Arts department following which a large number of students had begun agitation inside the campus while a large number of professors stepped down from the admission process to protest against the decision.
Demanding entrance tests for admission, as many as 20 students of the university went on an indefinite fast from Friday (July 6) night. Four of them were admitted to hospital as their health conditions deteriorated.
The university on Tuesday also formed an admission committee which is likely to hold its first meeting on Wednesday to finalize the dates and procedures of admission in the undergraduate section.
"We are waiting for the meeting of newly formed admission committee which is scheduled to be held on Wednesday afternoon," a student said.
"We will decide the next step of our movement after knowing the decision of the committee," he added.
(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
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