HYDERABAD: Gandhi Medical College hosted the SHE Teams on Tuesday as they launched their statewide WhatsApp helpline number to tackle crimes against women. However, the college itself appears to be ill-equipped to deal with sexual harassment cases as the students say that they have no Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) to look into such cases.
Inspector General (Women’s Safety Wing and Law and Order) Swati Lakra, while speaking to the students, asked them to approach the Internal Complaints Committees in their college if they face any problem, especially with regard to sexual harassment.
However, it turned out that the Gandhi Medical College — one of the top medical colleges — has not constituted an ICC till date. "When we joined the course, we were told about the anti-ragging helplines, but never about the Internal Complaints Committee," said a student of first year.
As per the Visakha Guidelines, every institution with more than 10 women must have an ICC to resolve issues of gender-based violence. The UGC has been mandating the same in educational institutions and universities. "We have class representative who take up our issues to the administration. However there is no ICC in our college. Today SHE Teams told us whom to approach," said another student.
Other students opined that since no incidents of sexual harassment of students took place till date, they never felt the need for the ICC.Express made several attempts to reach the Gandhi Medical College administration but failed to get a comment on the issue.