Kolkata: A section of engineering students at Jadavpur University (JU) has kept the officiating Vice-Chancellor (V-C), Bhaskar Gupta, and other officials under gherao since Monday afternoon, demanding that all students who failed a mathematics exam be declared as passed. The officials remained under gherao until late into the night.
The agitation comes in the wake of revelations that some students had submitted fake marksheets while applying for government scholarships. During verification, officials detected the fraud and subsequently asked the university to take action against those involved.
However, protesting students alleged that over 100 candidates failing the mathematics paper was highly unusual. They demanded that the university ensure everyone passes the mathematics exam. Sources indicated that some students initially demanded the university justify the fake marksheets submitted for government scholarships.
JU V-C Bhaskar Gupta flatly refused to entertain the students’ demands, terming them "unjustifiable" and "unethical". Addressing the issue, he stated, “The demands were raised after it was found that some students who failed had manipulated their downloadable marksheets to show they had passed and uploaded them to the government scholarship portal. We cannot meet such demands. They can keep me under gherao; nothing can be done.”
He added, “These 30-40 students cannot represent the 12,000 students of Jadavpur. They are part of a corruption cycle, but I don’t believe the rest of Jadavpur’s students are the same.”
While refusing to concede to the students' demands, Gupta assured that steps would be taken to examine the reasons behind the high number of failures. He mentioned that faculty members, particularly from the Mathematics Department, have been instructed to scrutinise answer scripts for any discrepancies.