Kolkata: Maoist inmate Arnab Dam presently lodged at Hooghly District Correctional Home has secured the first rank in the interview process for PhD conducted at Burdwan University. According to sources at Burdwan University, the interview results for PhD in History were published on Friday. AS many as 250 candidates took part in the interview for 9 seats and among them, Dam’s name has figured at the top of the list. On June 26 Dam appeared for the interview amidst tight security cover.
“We always encourage educational pursuits in correctional homes. We are ready to extend all possible support to Dam if he does his PhD,” said Akhil Giri, state Minister in Charge of the Correctional Administration Department. Dam was arrested in connection with a Maoist attack at the Silda camp of the Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) in 2012 from Balarampur in Purulia and has been lodged in prison since then. He was a state committee member of CPI Maoists in Bengal and was active even in areas of neighbouring states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha.
Dam has done his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in History from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) from the correctional home and has secured first division in both. The son of retired judge S K Dam and a resident of Garia he has always been a meritorious student. He passed his Higher Secondary examination from Narendrapur Ramkrishna Mission and joined mechanical engineering at IIT Kharagpur. However, in 1998 while in his third semester, he mysteriously disappeared from the campus. He was arrested in the year 2005 for Maoist activities and after some months in prison, he was out on bail. In 2019 he cleared the State Eligibility Test (SET) examination and set a precedence in the history of correctional homes in the state by becoming the first person to do so.