SAMBALPUR: A day after the arrest of an assistant professor on charges of sexually exploiting a female student, Gangadhar Meher University (GMU) on Friday held an urgent meeting of its internal complaints committee (ICC) and issued a comprehensive advisory to faculty members regarding their conduct and behaviour with students.
The university directed faculty members to maintain professional ethics and moral responsibility, advising them to treat students as their own sons, daughters or siblings. The advisory urged teachers to remain empathetic, address students’ concerns in a positive manner, and escalate serious issues to higher authorities or the ICC without delay.
Following the meeting, the ICC outlined a series of preventive and support measures, including initiating psychological counselling and awareness programmes for students and staff, conducting regular sensitisation drives in hostels, distributing informational leaflets on how to identify and report sexual harassment besides ensuring weekly and regular monitoring of ICC activities.
The university also circulated contact details of ICC members among students and employees to ensure that they feel safe approaching the committee. “The ICC is fully functional. Even the NAAC team appreciated our structure. All our ICC members are women,” said vice-chancellor in-charge Prof Susanta Kumar Das.
On being asked if the ICC would investigate the ongoing case against the accused assistant professor, Das said, “There is already a police investigation underway. As per guidelines, we will begin departmental proceedings against him, but the ICC will not run a parallel probe into the same complaint.”
On Thursday, Gopikant Suna (32), an assistant professor in the department of Education, was arrested by Sambalpur police after a 20-year-old second-year student accused him of having physical relationship with her under the false promise of marriage. A case has been registered under section 69 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) against Suna.
The accused has also been placed under suspension by the university.