Students, ‘outsiders’ play cat-&-mouse game with guards on JU campus after 8pm ‘curfew’

Kolkata: A day after Jadavpur University banned gatherings on the campus after 8 pm, the new rule was ostensibly only partially implemented on Tuesday night. While guards patrolled the campus in the "curfew" hours, groups of students and "outsiders" tried to stay back, dodging them.The JU authorities on Monday issued a circular, prohibiting gatherings on the campus, especially at canteens, opposite Subarna Jayanti Bhavan, and on the ground after 8 pm. The circular, which followed a fight between two students' groups in which two professors were injured, stated legal action would be taken against those flouting the rule and that those entering the campus from 7 pm to 7 am had to show their ID cards.
Usually eight ex-servicemen and 25 security guards are on duty between 2 pm and 10 pm and six ex-servicemen and 15 guards from 10 pm to 6 am.TOI visited JU between 8 pm and 11 pm on Tuesday to find security personnel, in their khaki uniforms, posted at gates but none seemed to stop anyone, not even bikers, from entering or exiting the campus at night. Around 8.30 pm, some boys and girls were found sitting on the university ground. As the clock struck 9, security guards shooed them away but the groups returned to their spots soon after the patrolling personnel passed by. Youngsters chatting at canteens and outside Subarna Jayanti Bhavan scattered away on spotting security personnel from a distance and hid in the dark. As the guards moved about 500 m away, they emerged from their hideouts to their adda spots.Between 10 pm and 11 pm, bikes entered and exited the campus without being stopped at gates. Around 10.35 pm, a guard at Gate 4 did stop a white car and quizzed the driver. The hide-and-seek with guards notwithstanding, the nightly turnout was thinner than that before the circular was issued, said some. "But violations did take place," said a JU employee, who lives on the campus. A guard said, "Ex-servicemen are posted at the gates. We patrol the campus and try to disperse the gatherings. The response was positive after the circular was issued. But it's not possible to entirely stop them from gathering after 8 pm."JU registrar Selim Box Mandal said, "I told security personnel to implement the rules strictly. If any student refuses to comply, the guards are told to submit their names and departments to the registrar's office. We may contact their parents, if need be." A professor pointed out that students, too, had a role to play: "They must know their limits."