By IANS
Kolkata/Santiniketan : A day after a student was shot dead by a 29-year-old man inside a hostel of the Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan in West Bengal, authorities of the varsity established by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore say they are worried about security on campus.
Students refused to attend classes Monday following a call for boycott by a student union. They, along with teachers and all staff of the varsity took out a silent procession to mourn the Sunday incident in which the assailant, Amaresh Kundu, shot dead 23-year-old Saswati Pal, a resident of Sangeet Bhavan hostel, and then took his own life.
Kundu succumbed to his self-inflicted gun shot wounds late Sunday night when he was being taken to the SSKM Hospital in Kolkata from Burdwan Medical College Hospital where he was admitted immediately after the shooting.
“We are terribly worried about the security aspect and are trying to figure out what best can be done to beef it up. We have to use our existing infrastructure to strengthen security and also see that students themselves take some precautions,” Visva-Bharati registrar Samit Roy said Monday.
“One must realize that Visva-Bharati is not outside West Bengal or India. These things are happening all over. So we met and discussed the security aspect once again,” Roy told IANS.
“The initial feedback we got from police is that such incidents cannot be easily prevented even with the best of security measures whereas here it is a porous campus,” he said.
Kundu had Sunday barged into the women’s hostel and shot Saswati dead with a .32 calibre service revolver he had stolen from Kolkata’s Tollygunge police station.
Kundu was employed as a cook in the mess of the Tollygunge police station in south Kolkata but also worked as a part-time driver of the additional officer in charge of the police station.
“The pistol belonged to constable Sunil Kumar Majhi, and it was reported missing since 6.30 a.m. Sunday. A departmental inquiry has been ordered and the constable has been suspended for carelessness,” said a police officer. The police have seized the revolver.
Kundu succumbed to his injuries while being transferred to SSKM Hospital here around 12.30 a.m.
He was a former neighbour of Saswati who hailed from Ghatal in West Midnapore district.
“We were not aware of any relationship between the two,” said Saswati’s mother Pratima Pal.
According to the police, Kundu killed Saswati Pal because she had spurned him.
The boarders at Ananda Sadan, the hostel where the incident occurred, said Kundu was a frequent visitor and they had seen the two chatting for long hours in the visitor’s room of the hostel.
“He used to come very frequently till a year ago. Then the visits became irregular,” said a boarder.
A common friend of the duo said Saswati had started distancing herself from Kundu.
The Chatra Sansad, the university’s student union, has demanded the deployment of central security forces like in Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
The union has demanded Rs.500,000 as compensation for Saswati’s family and called for complete boycott of classes till security is beefed up on the 1,266-acre campus.
In March 2004, Tagore’s Nobel Prize medal and other priceless memorabilia were stolen from the university museum.
Established by Tagore in 1921, Visva Bharati University is located in the sylvan ambience of Santiniketan in Birbhum district of West Bengal, about 160 km from state capital Kolkata. The prime minister is the ex-officio chancellor of Visva-Bharati.
In May 1951, Visva-Bharati was declared a central university and “an institution of national importance” by an act of parliament. It was granted the status of a unitary, teaching and residential university.
The university, which boasts of alumni like former prime minister Indira Gandhi, filmmaker Satayajit Ray, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, maharani of Jaipur Gayatri Devi, and famous painters like Nandalal Bose and Abanindra Nath Thakur, has lost much of its glory.
At present, 1,100 male and 1,170 female students reside in 44 hostels of different capacities in the university campus.