Kamal's rank from the top is 17th. This means there are 16 students ahead of him. Out of these 16 students, 9 are girls, so the remaining 16 - 9 = 7 students ahead of Kamal must be boys. Since there are 7 boys ahead of Kamal, and he is a boy, the total number of boys in the class is 7 (ahead of him) + 1 (Kamal) = 8 boys. As the total number of students is 60 and the number of girls is twice that of boys, there are 20 girls and 40 boys, contradicting the earlier deduction. Let's re-evaluate the problem statement assuming the ratio of girls to boys is 2:1. Total students = 60. Let boys be x, then girls = 2x. So, x + 2x = 60 => 3x = 60 => x = 20 boys and 40 girls. Kamal is ranked 17th. There are 16 students ahead of him. 9 of these are girls. Therefore, 16 - 9 = 7 boys are ahead of Kamal. This means Kamal is the 7 + 1 = 8th boy in the class. Since there are 20 boys in total, the number of boys behind Kamal is 20 (total boys) - 8 (boys up to and including Kamal) = 12 boys. This interpretation aligns with the class composition.