A fact-finding committee of IIT Kharagpur has written to several offices of the institute requesting to know what actions they did after hearing about the death of Faizan Ahmed and the evacuation of his body by police.
The committee was set up in October to explore the murder of the third-year student, whose partially decomposed body was found in a hostel room on the campus on October 14.
The action-taken report sought from the offices concerned “will aid our investigation to discover the fact in terms of action taken by the institute and their offices,” states a notification that was sent by the fact-finding committee.
A writ petition by Faizan’s parents in Calcutta High Court says: “No ambulance was arranged from the IIT hospital to take what remained of the deceased student to the government hospital morgue.”
The petition claims that despite it being an urgent situation, the administrators “did not find it necessary to contact a doctor or medical attendant from the IIT hospital,” as would be expected of any regular person.
The fact-finding committee has asked action-taken reports from the warden of the Lala Lajpat Rai Hall of Residence, office of the dean of students’ affairs, chairman of the Hall Management Centre, director of BC Roy Technology Hospital, senior security officer and faculty adviser, and others.
Faizan’s body was located in a room at the Lala Lajpat Rai hall.
The IIT administration had on October 21 tendered “unconditional apologies” and acknowledged “responsibility for the failures that happened in the handling of the situation” following the death of the student.
Sources on the campus stated that since the failures had also been referred to in the writ case, the fact-finding committee is seeking to obtain details on the kind of activities that were initiated by the relevant offices after Faizan’s murder.
“The IIT director has been granted an opportunity by the court to file another affidavit in connection with the writ case during the next hearing, scheduled for January 24, 2023. The report of the committee is expected to be provided in the form of an affidavit. We anticipate the action-taken reports that have been asked will also be reflected in the affidavit,” said a source.
“The Director, IIT, Kharagpur, may use any affidavit enclosing therewith and bring on record any other reports as he may deem fit and necessary,” Justice Rajasekhar Mantha, of the high court, said in his order on Wednesday while striking down the IIT lawyer’s plea to excuse the director, V.K. Tewari, following a court hearing on January 24.
Calls and text messages from this newspaper to the director failed to elicit any response.
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