Jadavpur University’s plan to install 30 additional CCTV cameras is being presented as a response to security gaps across its campus. But the announcement also exposes a more difficult institutional question: can expanding surveillance improve safety when cameras already installed at the gates recorded a major campus incident, yet students say the footage has not resulted in visible action against alleged offenders?
The university’s new acting registrar, Debajit Datta, said the additional cameras would cover locations including the open-air theatre, Subarna Jayanti Bhavan and the football ground near Aurobindo Bhavan, the administrative headquarters. The university is likely to conduct a security audit before finalising the locations, he said.
The proposed expansion would add to the 50 CCTV cameras already installed on the main campus. Datta said most of the existing cameras cover the gates and administrative headquarters, leaving a large part of the campus outside their field of view. The stated objective is to bring those areas under coverage for the safety and security of students and others.
That explanation establishes the immediate administrative case for more cameras. It also indicates that the university’s current surveillance network was designed or deployed unevenly, with greater attention to entry points and administrative buildings than to open campus spaces. The proposed audit is therefore not only a procurement step. It is an attempt to identify which parts of the university’s physical layout remain outside the existing security system.
The timing of the plan is linked to a continuing dispute over political graffiti and a wider confrontation on the campus. Students belonging to the Revolutionary Students Front wrote political slogans on the walls of the open-air theatre, including language advocating violence against fascists. Another slogan attributed to Karl Marx was also written there. The graffiti was later whitewashed.
The open-air theatre was among the locations that had been whitewashed after objections from chief minister Suvendu Adhikari. Earlier this month, the university also asked the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to whitewash the walls of the open-air theatre and other areas. These actions placed campus walls and public-facing university spaces at the centre of a dispute over political expression, property and institutional control.
The CCTV proposal, however, is more directly connected to an alleged campus intrusion and vandalism incident on August 20. According to the report, supporters of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad were alleged to have gone on a rampage across the campus while protesting the alleged assault of their unit president, Nikhil Das, by some Left-wing students. The university filed an FIR at Jadavpur police station and handed over CCTV footage to the police.
The incident shows why surveillance coverage has become a central part of the university’s security response. It also shows why students are questioning whether the main problem is the number of cameras. Anushna Das, a postgraduate student, said she was trapped inside Aurobindo Bhavan past 1am on August 20. She argued that the cameras at the gates had already captured who entered the campus and who enabled the alleged raids, but questioned whether the footage had led to action.
Her concern shifts the debate from visibility to accountability. A camera can record movement, but the public value of that recording depends on several subsequent steps: whether the footage is preserved, whether investigators can identify those involved, whether the material is handed over in a usable form, and whether the police or university authorities act on it. The supplied account confirms that the footage was handed to police and that investigations are under way. It does not establish that the footage has led to arrests, disciplinary findings or other action.
That distinction matters for the university’s next decision. Installing 30 more cameras may close physical blind spots, but it will not by itself resolve questions about response times, access control, police investigation or the responsibilities of university authorities during a security incident. The university’s own explanation identifies a coverage problem. Students’ criticism identifies an enforcement problem. Both can exist at the same time.
The institutional chain is already divided across multiple authorities. Jadavpur University is responsible for deciding where cameras should be placed and for managing the campus security system. The Kolkata Municipal Corporation became involved in whitewashing requests concerning campus walls. The police are handling the investigation after the FIR and have received the CCTV footage. The state government also figures in the recent administrative background: Datta was appointed acting registrar after the government removed Selim Box Mandal, who had been appointed to the post in December last year.
This division of responsibility can make campus security difficult to assess. A university may install and operate cameras, but it may not control the investigation that follows an incident. Police may receive footage, but the university controls the physical site and its internal administrative processes. Students, meanwhile, experience the outcome as one security system rather than as separate institutional functions.
The proposed audit could therefore become the most consequential part of the announcement. The locations named by Datta are not conventional entry points. The open-air theatre, Subarna Jayanti Bhavan and the football ground are spaces where students gather, move through or spend time outside administrative buildings. Placing cameras there would extend surveillance deeper into the everyday campus environment rather than simply adding more equipment at gates.
That expansion also raises a question about the purpose of monitoring. The stated purpose is the safety and security of students and others. Yet the immediate public controversy involves both alleged physical disorder and political graffiti. The two issues are related by location and campus tensions, but they are not identical. A camera may document vandalism or an intrusion; it cannot, on its own, settle disputes over political expression or determine whether a slogan violates university rules or the law.
The available facts also show that surveillance and physical maintenance are being pursued together. The walls were whitewashed, the university sought municipal assistance, and more cameras are being considered. This creates a visible response to disorder: remove the graffiti and increase monitoring. What remains less clear is how the university will define the threshold for intervention, how footage will be used, and how students will know that security measures are producing results.
Datta said the university’s inquiry commission and the police probe into the August 20 incident were under way when he was asked about concerns that CCTV cameras had failed to ensure safety or lead to action against alleged offenders. That is the current official position. It leaves the immediate question unresolved because the outcomes of both inquiries have not yet been reported in the supplied material.
The university’s CCTV expansion is therefore best understood as an unfinished security reform rather than a completed solution. The administration has identified uncovered areas and proposed an audit before installation. Students have pointed to the gap between recording an incident and securing accountability. Police and university inquiries remain pending. The next meaningful test will be whether the proposed cameras are accompanied by a clear response process and whether the ongoing investigations establish what happened on August 20 and what action follows.
