BHU violence: National Commission for Women probe indicts vice-chancellor GC Tripathi

Varanasi: The National Commission for Women (NCW) team probing the violence in Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in September, on Friday indicted the vice-chancellor for the incident.

Acting chairperson of NCW Rekha Sharma said in Varanasi that had the vice-chancellor met the girls who were agitating against eve-teasing (molestation), the situation would not have spun out of control.

Sharma said the girls told them during the probe that their agitation had been “taken over” by some outsiders and it was they who were responsible for the agitation going violent.

The NCW chairperson also said that there was a lot of eve-teasing and harassment of girls on the university campus and the situation in the hostels was very bad. Many a time, boys were spotted outside the windows of the girls’ hostel, she said.

She also called for enhanced security outside hostels, especially girls’ hostels. Hi-tech cameras for 24x7 monitoring of the campus have also been recommended. The CCTV cameras of specialised kind have, however, been already installed on the campus.

The Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Varanasi, has meanwhile also been asked by the women’s panel to get 50 unlawfully staying students out of the hostels.

Sharma also rued that the vice-chancellor had so far not appeared before the panel and that he had not even taken telephone calls so far nor responded to SMSs.

Police have also been indicted in the probe for the cane-charge and faulted for the absence of women police personnel during the scuffle with agitating girl students.

The whole ruckus at the famous BHU started on 21 September when a group of girls were teased by three boy students in the arts faculty.

Girls alleged that they had raised the matter with the Warden and also the chief proctor, but no action was taken against the errant students. The girls were instead asked by the varsity officials not to step out late night.

Demanding that the security be enhanced at the hostels and the campus, hundreds of girls had staged a sit-in the next day when the prime minister was in town on a two-day visit.

The same night they had also staged a march along with boy students to the bungalow of vice-chancellor GC Tripathi but were cane-charged by the police when they refused to back off.

Irate students then took to violence, vandalised university property and torched some two-wheelers.