Kolkata: A dozen students gathered outside the locked administration building at Jadavpur University with posters in Bangla demanding ‘Justice’ and a ‘ragging-free’ campus. None of them really knew the 17-year-old. They never got the chance. He was found outside the main boys’ hostel on the evening of 9 August, on what would have been his second day as a first-year student at one of the country’s top institutions.

Jadavpur University’s sprawling campus has become a cradle of unrest, unease, and uncertainty with allegations of ragging and hazing, rumours of suicide, unconfirmed reports of the student’s body covered in welts and cigarette burns, and a series of protests and some arrests. One of the last remaining bastions of Left ideology in the country, Jadavpur University has witnessed several anti-establishment movements and student uprisings—starting from its fight against the mishandling of a sexual harassment case in 2014, which led to the police lathi-charge on students, to hunger strikes by protesters, to finally then-vice chancellor stepping down over the scrapping of entrance tests in 2018.