Students at Kolkata’s Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute have threatened an indefinite academic halt over notices issued to students, hostel access, campus safety and the handling of allegations, while vice-chancellor Santosh Ajmera has appealed for calm and proposed a plan to accommodate freshers on campus.
The protest escalated after students boycotted classes. According to the Times of India report, only one student attended classes in the electronic digital media wing on Thursday, while no students attended on Friday. The vice-chancellor had earlier warned that students who missed classes would face consequences and issued notices to some students.
The hostel dispute is central to the standoff. Ajmera said faculty members would be asked to prepare a plan under which senior students would complete their diploma films on priority and vacate their hostels as soon as possible, allowing junior students to be accommodated.
“My heart goes to the newcomers since they are new to the city as well as to the institution. Freshers should get priority to avail the hostel,” Ajmera said. He added that senior students had a responsibility to ensure that juniors received the benefits they had received at the institute.
Students subsequently issued a set of demands, stating that they had unanimously decided to begin an indefinite academic halt unless their concerns were addressed. They demanded the unconditional withdrawal of all allegations against students and sought the intervention of institute chairman Suresh Gopi and Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who is also the institute’s chancellor, according to the report.
The dispute also includes opposing positions over campus graffiti and security measures. Students have said that resolving the tension would not come through removing graffiti or installing barbed wire on the campus. Ajmera said he did not intend to censor expression and that creative wall graffiti was welcome, but argued that graffiti amounting to defacement of government property had to be removed.
He said some of the material removed was provocative and that the institute had to maintain a safe and liveable environment because staff and faculty families, including minors, reside on campus. The comments place the graffiti dispute within a wider question over how an educational campus balances student expression, residential use and institutional security.
The report also described concerns over the naming and shaming of staff and students on social media. Students accused BJP leader Rudranil Ghosh of sharing screenshots of private conversations that exposed students’ names, identities and phone numbers. Ghosh had also questioned the non-political character of the agitation by sharing screenshots that he said indicated Left-wing backing. The report said he was unavailable for comment.
Ajmera, who said he joined the institute a week earlier, said he wanted SRFTI to become a global leader and linked the restoration of campus normalcy to plans for participation in festivals such as the International Film Festival of India and expanded career support for final-year students. The immediate next step is the proposed faculty plan for hostel accommodation and efforts by the institute and students to resolve the academic halt.
