JNU to install CCTVs on campus; administration seeks cooperation

The JNU administration on Wednesday "appealed to all concerned" to refrain from disrupting the varsity's efforts to install CCTVs on the campus including hostels.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) has been opposed to the installation of closed circuit television cameras saying it impinges on the privacy of students in hostels.

Varsity Registrar Pramod Kumar said the JNU administration condemned those engaging in "violent prevention" of the installation of CCTVs at critical points, particularly at the main entrance gate of the hostels. He, however, did not give more information or specify what the "violent prevention" was and who was responsible.

This is to underline that over the last few years, the Provost Committees and the lnter Hall Administration Committee had repeatedly recommended and emphasised the need for installation of CCTVs at the hostel gates, he said.

Citing the threat to life posed by the current novel coronavirus pandemic, he stressed it is all the more necessary to guard against unauthorised outsiders entering the campus, including the hostel premises.

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"In order to make the campus safe and secure for all the stakeholders, the JNU administration appeals to all concerned to cooperate and to refrain from disrupting the efforts for installation of CCTVs in the public place, including hostel gates," he said.

In view of several instances of law and order incidents, it has become imperative to install CCTVs at public places including hostel gates, he said.

"As and when law and order situation arose in the campus in recent years and the administration reported such matters to the police, CCTV footage evidences were demanded by the police," he said.

Violence broke out in the university on January 5 as some masked people armed with sticks and rods attacked students and teachers and damaged property on the campus, prompting the administration to call in police.