Jadavpur University (JU) saw night-long rampage and vandalism on August 20, when a mob, armed with sticks and rods, allegedly stormed the campus.
The violence followed a heated altercation late on August 19 between activists from the Akhil Bharaitya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) from the university’s engineering department and members of the Left-wing student outfit, Democratic Students’ Federation (DSF), and other student organizations. The ABVP alleged that its members were assaulted and that several workers required hospitalisation. Students from the engineering faculty disputed the claim and offered a counter-account of the incident.
By midnight, an armed mob allegedly entered the campus, apparently seeking to avenge the earlier altercation. The attackers tore down and set fire to placards, festoons and flags belonging to various student organisations active on the campus. The mob also surrounded Aurobindo Bhavan, the university’s administrative building, trapping students inside.
The violence was captured by CCTV cameras installed across the university campus. Students and journalists also recorded several videos of the incident. Alt News accessed multiple such recordings and analysed them to establish the identities of those involved in the ruckus.
What happened at JU: A Blow-by-Blow Account
Around 9:30–10:30 pm on August 19, the DSF-run Faculty of Engineering & Technology Students’ Union (FETSU) held a general body meeting on the campus. The meeting had been announced through the union’s social media account.
ABVP and the allied Right-wing student outfit, Nationalist Students’ Front (NSF), opposed the meeting, citing a Calcutta high court ruling that no activities could be undertaken from student union offices until fresh student union elections were held. According to students present, ABVP and NSF members were outnumbered and were forced to leave the spot. A few DSF members were also injured in the ensuing scuffle.
Ayantik Pal, a third-year B Tech student who attended the meeting, said the GB meeting had been convened to elect signatories for the union’s email ID, Facebook account and bank account. Since the last FETSU election was held in 2020, he said, the meeting was intended to allow the union to continue its functioning.
According to Pal, ABVP activists at the meeting repeatedly objected that it was illegal. He said they nevertheless participated when names for the signatories were being proposed, before becoming agitated as the meeting progressed. They allegedly abused some students, calling them “Naxals” and “Maoists”, following which a scuffle broke out.
Accounts diverge over what happened immediately afterwards.
According to students, Nikhil Das, an ABVP research scholar and president of the organisation’s JU unit, attempted to enter the undergraduate and postgraduate students’ GB meeting and allegedly tried to provoke a confrontation. Students said they intervened to stop him, escalating the situation. They alleged that three DSF workers were injured in the assault by ABVP activists and that one was taken away towards the Sulekha Crossing. ABVP denied these allegations.
ABVP, meanwhile, claimed that Das was assaulted during the GB meeting and subsequently had to be hospitalised at KPC Medical College and Hospital. BJP MLA from Jadavpur Sarbari Mukherjee visited him at the hospital. Students alleged that during the visit, she threatened that ABVP and BJP workers would retaliate if those accused in the assault did not surrender. She later repeated this on camera.
Around midnight, a crowd of approximately 50–60 people gathered outside Gate 4 of the university, which is the only entrance that remains open at night. By around 12:30 am, the group entered the campus.
Pramita Basu, an undergraduate Philosophy student, said that after 7 pm, everyone entering the campus is required to show an ID card, including hostel residents. However, according to her, the crowd entered without being stopped by the guards stationed at the gate.
The group moved from Gate 4 towards the Science-Arts crossing, where some wall graffiti was allegedly damaged, before turning towards Aurobindo Bhavan, the university’s administrative building. Videos from the night accessed by Alt News show some members of the group carrying saffron flags.
Meanwhile, students who had remained on campus after the earlier confrontation gathered inside Aurobindo Bhavan. According to them, they had decided to stay back until morning because they had heard that ABVP activists were looking for them outside the university.
Pal said an all-faculty GB meeting was also convened that night, with students from the arts, science and engineering faculties discussing what to do next. Around 12:30 am, he said, a university staff member alerted them that a mob had entered the campus and advised them to protect themselves.
“Within minutes, we saw a stream of mobile flashlights coming towards Aurobindo Bhavan from the side of the green zone. A few students present at the green zone were thrashed by this mob,” Pal said.
The students then woke the guards at Aurobindo Bhavan, obtained the keys and locked themselves inside, according to Pal.
The crowd that reached the building tried to break through its collapsible gates but failed. It then tore down red flags, festoons and posters belonging to student organisations and set them on fire outside the administrative building. Students trapped inside alleged that members of the crowd abused them verbally, threw stones and eggs at the building, and attempted to throw burning flags inside. Footage of the episode was broadcast live on television and recorded by students and journalists.
The violence continued until around 2 am. Around the same time, another group gathered outside Jadavpur police station and allegedly attempted to breach the entrance to the university’s main hostel, located next to the police station.
At the protest, ABVP West Bengal leaders were reportedly heard telling the media that the organisation was “putting the last nail in the coffin” of the “Dimagi Naxals” and would carry out “surgical strikes” at Jadavpur University to suppress them.
By around 2:30 am, the crowd had dispersed. The students who had taken shelter inside Aurobindo Bhavan began leaving the campus at around 5 am.
Alt News procured a third CCTV footage from University sources, where several persons of interest can be spotted as present on the campus on the night of August 20.
The confrontation did not end with the dispersal of the mob.
Around noon the following day, the Student Federation of India (SFI) and other Left student organisations held a protest near the Lenin statue at Jadavpur 8B bus stand. Kolkata Police barricaded the area and stopped the protesters from proceeding towards the university. Around 2 pm, an ABVP rally that began from Golpark reached Gate 4 of the university. Students inside the campus also gathered in response. As Gate 4 was kept locked to prevent outsiders from entering, a face-off between the two groups on either side of the gate ensued.
During the confrontation, members of the ABVP crowd were seen standing on the historic university emblem designed by artist Nandalal Bose as they attempted to cross the closed gate and enter the campus.
Visuals of Rajyeshwar Sinha, a professor of Bengali at JU, holding the partially damaged University emblem went viral.
We Accessed Additional Footage
Alt news procured footage from a CCTV camera installed near the science-arts crossing. It can be viewed here:
Besides, we collected video footage from a local media outlet whose representatives were present on the campus on that night. It can be viewed here:
ABVP Denial
Directly denying any role of ABVP, the outfit’s central working committee (CWC) member Subhabrata Adhikary said on a talk show on ABP Ananda, that ABVP had no connection with the rampage at Jadavpur University on August 20. When pointed out by the anchor that people in the mob were holding ABVP flags, Adhikary said, “It doesn’t prove anything. SFI workers have done the vandalism while holding ABVP flags”. When asked if ABVP was condemning the night-long violence, he again said, “It is clear that ABVP has no connection with the incident.”
Talking to The Times of India, south Bengal ABVP secretary Neelkantha Bhattacharya, too, denied his presence during the campus violence. However, he then said, some of ABVP boys entered the campus “out of over-enthusiasm. The gate was open. We just pushed inside. I went at most 10 steps inside the university to get them out”.
Adhikary, on the other hand, contradicted his own statement on ABP Ananda, and told TOI, “I was standing right by the gate. I have no connection with the mob. After hearing about the situation, I went there to ensure that no untoward incident happened. ABVP has no involvement in any vandalism.”
CCTV and Video Footage Disprove ABVP Claims
Alt News examined CCTV footage from the intervening night of August 19-20 and identified several prominent ABVP faces and BJP-linked political figures on the campus.
1. Subhabarta Adhikary
Visible in JU CCTV footage-1 (Captured by a camera fixed on the external wall of PG Arts building)
As the gate opens at 12.38.17 am, Adhikary is one of the first persons to enter the campus, followed by a crowd. When the group nears a large white SFI banner, he is seen saying something in an animated manner. Within seconds, others in the crowd tear down the banner. It is not clear whether he instructs them to do it or tries to dissuade them.
2. Neelkantha Bhattacharya
Visible in JU CCTV footage-2 (Captured by a camera installed on a pole at the science-arts crossing).
Around 12:40 am, Neelkantha Bhattacharya is seen carrying a rod or a stick while instructing a group. In the same footage, at the 12:39:22 am mark, Subhabrata Adhikary is seen next to him. They are in front of the PG science building. At 12:40:28, the two once again can be seen together. This time Bhattacharya is carrying sticks in both hands.
It is worth noting that Bhattacharyya first told TOI that he was not present on the campus. Then, he claimed, he had barely taken 10 steps inside the gate. The distance from Gate 4 to PG Science building, according to Google Maps, is over 360 feet, i.e., about 110 meters.
3. Somsurya Banerjee
Visible in JU CCTV footage-3 (Captured by a camera on the outer wall of security guards’ room at Gate-4)
Banerjee, an NSF activist, is spotted on the campus around 1.14 am on August 20. Banerjee had earlier courted controversy by claiming that cows were slaughtered within the University during Iftar.
4. Aditya Mondal
Visible in footage captured by Mrittika TV, a local media outlet.
The portal captured the exact moment when the crowd entered the campus, in a livestream. Although the video was later deleted from the page, Alt News accessed the footage. In that video, (embedded in the story above) Aditya Mondal, the ABVP candidate for the recently held election to internal complaint committee (ICC) of the Arts Faculty, was spotted near the PG science building. The wall had an SFI graffiti, where a person was seen urinating on the Nazi Hakenkreuz. The writing next to it said, ‘Break Fascism with Red’. Mondal was seen with a group that tried to rub the symbol off. Mondal can be heard saying, “The left-naxals had insulted the symbol of India, Swastik. We are correcting it.”
5. Partha Chakraborty
Visible in the footage captured by students stuck inside Aurobindo Bhavan, during the rampage.
Partha Chakraborty, a Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) worker from the Dhakuria area, was also present at the scene. In videos captured by the students stranded inside Aurobindo Bhavan, he was seen burning flags of SFI and other Left organizations in front of the collapsible gate of the building, and throwing the burning flags inside. Three days later, on August 23, he was seen with BJP’s losing candidate from Kasba assembly Sandeep Banerjee and South Kolkata Yuva Morcha leader Shatadru Ghoshal.
6. Abhijeet Roy (Raja)
Visible in JU CCTV footage-3 (Captured by a camera on the outer wall of security guards’ room at Gate-4)
Another prominent face identified in the footage from that night is Abhijeet Roy alias Raja, the election agent of Jadavpur MLA Sarbari Mukherjee. In a video posted on social media, Roy was seen standing with a group outside Gate-4, with one member holding an ABVP flag. ABVP leader Neelkantha Bhattacharya is part of the group. Roy’s entry into the campus was also captured on CCTV footage. He is seen interacting with a group of men with former VC Buddhadeb Sau standing at an arm’s length.
7. Buddhadeb Sau
Visible in JU CCTV footage-1 and JU CCTV footage-3.
The most talked about entry on that eventful night was perhaps that of Buddhadeb Sau, professor of mathematics and ex-VC of the university. Sau’s presence raised eyebrows not only for the fact that it is unusual for an academic of his stature to be on the campus past midnight, but also because of his Sangh connections. He is associated with the RSS-backed Akhil Bhartiya Rashtriya Shaikshik Mahasangh (ABRSM), and represented the organisation at a joint press meet held by Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh JU unit, ABVP JU unit and ABRSM JU unit, held after the campus violence.
Sau can be spotted in JU CCTV footage-1 and JU CCTV footage-3. In the JU CCTV footage-1 feed, he is seen entering the campus through a side gate at 12:39:44 am, and exiting through the same gate at 12:44:35 am. For the entire duration, he stood in front of the security guards’ room, occasionally speaking to others. From 12:44:09 till his exit 26 seconds later, he is seen watching others tearing down what appears to be political flags put up on Gate-4.
Sau is seen once again in JU CCTV footage-3. This time he was captured by the camera installed on the outer wall of security guards’ room at Gate-4, at 1:06:33 am. This time also, he is seen standing in front of guards’ room.
Asked about his presence during the rampage, Sau told TOI, “I went to the spot as soon as I received news of the disturbance. No one from the authorities was present there. I was concerned. I told the police to get additional cops to manage any potential flare-up. Once the group retreated and the situation was brought under I returned to my quarters. I went and tried to protect the students; is that my crime?”
This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Anindya Hazra.
Anindya Hazra | Radio Free (2026-09-10T06:07:19+00:00) Jadavpur University vandalism: ABVP leaders, BJP functionaries identified in CCTV footage. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2026/09/10/jadavpur-university-vandalism-abvp-leaders-bjp-functionaries-identified-in-cctv-footage/
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