JU death | Teen humiliated for 2 hrs, ran naked from room to room: Cops

Police have reportedly pieced together the events leading to the death of the 17-year-old student at Jadavpur University’s main boys’ hostel on August 9 night. In a two-hour ordeal, the boy was stripped, paraded naked, and he eventually ran from room to room for help before the fatal fall, police have said.

Media reports cited Kolkata Police as saying that the teenager was stripped, bullied, and abused with homosexual slurs. From what the investigators have reportedly figured out, the boy, who lived in Room 68 on the second floor, was summoned to Room 70 on the same floor around 9 pm on August 9 by his seniors.

The seniors allegedly asked him walk down the second-floor corridor, during which he was allegedly stripped. Unable to take the humiliation, he reportedly first tried to lock himself up in Room 65, but couldn’t. Then he ran from one room to another as the senior boys chased him, say the police. His plight reportedly continued till 11 pm.

The Indian Express quoted a senior police officer as saying that according to some hostel residents, the 17-year-old told them he was “not gay”. The officer told the newspaper that they were now focusing on what made him say that.

Around 11.45 pm, the boy fell from the second-floor balcony of the hostel building, between Room 59 and 68, say the police. However, they yet to find out how he fell from the balcony.

The accused

On Tuesday (August 23), police confirmed that the boy from West Bengal’s Nadia district was “definitely ragged and sexually molested”. Of the 13 arrested in connection with the teen’s death, 12 played an active role in the incident, the police have said.

Police are yet to slap the stringent POCSO Act (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) on the accused but they may do so since the boy was a minor.

According to media reports, 12 of the accused have been booked for murder and ragging, while one has been charged with obstructing the police from carrying out their duty. Six of the accused are current students and seven former students.

Sourabh Chowdhury, a 2022 Mathematics graduate who lived in the hostel illegally, is the main accused, say the police. He was the first to be arrested on August 11.

The incident has revealed that several students continue to live on in the hostel illegally despite graduating from the prestigious university. According to hostel residents, they are “powerful” and have “unrestricted entry” into the hostel.

(With agency inputs)