Protesters at Madras University undeterred by students’ suspension
CHENNAI: The protest by University of Madras students, alleging that a senior faculty sexually harassed one of the students, entered the fifth day. The student who filed the sexual harassment complaint had hurt her wrist on Sunday morning, but returned to the protest scene after receiving first aid at a government hospital. This comes a day after the university suspended five students, including the complainant and some of the witnesses, on grounds of “disciplinary action.” Speaking to Express, the complainant said that the head of her department (HOD) had molested her in the middle of a heated argument among students and the teacher in a class room.
Top university officials told Express that the students did not show up for many discussions they tried organising and that they had “violated the code of conduct by staging demonstrations before formally writing a complaint to the administration and misusing the campus space.” The protesters however paint a different picture. Students of the social science department had approached the HOD on March 16, to discuss discrepancies in their internal marks. They had charged that some students were failed in the exams deliberately as they had staged demonstrations against the management earlier in the year.
“Sir (HOD) was sitting on the chair and he got up and pushed me on my chest. Then he pushed other students also. First I thought he did it accidentally,” said the complainant narrating the altercation between the students and the teacher on March 16. “But then he pushed me three times in total, but at all times he pushed me on my chest. In fact one of my classmates asked him why he was doing that and I even held his shirt and asked him to stop doing that,” she added.
She said that after the incident, she asked the faculty to apologise for “manhandling” her and other students. “He walked off asking us to do whatever we can. The only recourse we have is protest,” she said.
The complainant explained that the reason she hurt herself was because the “University staff asked me questions about my character. They asked what kind of a girl I should be to stay up with boys to protest all night. It was very embarrassing.”
A witness who was suspended concurred with her and added that students had fought with the teacher as a handful of them who were failed by the faculty, passed with much higher marks on reevaluation. “So we were asking him to disclose our internal marks on the notice board as per procedure,” he said. University officials told Express that they suspended the students only after students refused to show up for discussions. “If they had a problem with the HOD, they should have written to the campus director or registrar. Instead, they directly entered protests. They did not attend any meetings we tried to organise,” a top official said.
The witness however argued that students were summoned by a committee that was enquiring the allegations submitted by the HOD against the students and not the other way around. The witness also showed the summon letter to this reporter. The complainant told Express that when the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) had summoned the students, she showed up. “However they asked very little about the harassment and sent me off,” she said.
The varsity official responding to this allegation said that while summoning the HOD, he was informed about the students’ allegations. “We want the interests of the students protected,” the official added. A member of the ICC, on condition of anonymity, said that the suspension had nothing to do with the complaint itself and was not issued by the ICC. “The ICC is yet to sign the official findings of the enquiry committee. So, I cannot comment on the sexual harassment yet,” the member said on Saturday night.