KOCHI: Kerala High Court on Tuesday held that the Cusat authorities had specific duties and responsibilities, particularly when a congregation of students was to occur within the campus. “Fingers point to system failure, which has to be inquired. I want things clean. I would like to know what inquiries are going on. Whether it is being done by Cusat or other agencies,” said Justice Devan Ramachandran. The court said that the role of the police and security personnel will also have to be looked into, not for this case alone, but as a guideline for the future.
“It was a programme conducted by the students. We cannot scare them. At the moment we go by the assumption that it was an accident, unless the inquiry shows something else, that there was a criminal element or there was deliberate action from someone. As matters stand now, the fingers point to the authorities of the university. You have to anticipate an issue. Unfortunately, we have a pattern of reacting after an incident,” said the court.
The court issued the order on a petition filed by KSU president Aloshious Xavier seeking a judicial probe into the incident.
The court said that the incident should not have happened. Precious lives were lost, and the loss for the families is ever to stay. Public memory may be short, but the scar on the members of the families can never be allayed.
Since at this time, there is hardly any information to the contrary, the incident appears to be an accident, but it is more or less limpid that there was some failure. The event is stated to have been organized by the students themselves and therefore, utmost care should have been taken by every stakeholder so that the minds of the young people involved are not subjected to blame game or guilt, during the inquiries.