BHU VC denies report of being summoned by HRD ministry

Banaras Hindu University's (BHU) Vice Chancellor G C Tripathy on Tuesday said that he had not been summoned by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) to explain the violence that had taken place on his campus in the week gone by.

"This is false news doing rounds in media. I haven't been summoned by the HRD Ministry," Tripathy said.

Earlier reports were doing the rounds in the media that Tripathy was being summoned by the HRD Ministry and that the BHU vice chancellor has already left for Delhi.

Earlier in the day, Varanasi Commissioner Nitin Gokarn submitted a preliminary report to Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary Rajiv Kumar over the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) clash and blamed the university administration for not handling the matter in a sensitive manner.

Gokarn, in his report, said that the BHU neither dealt with the victim's complaint in a sensitive manner nor handled the situation on time.

Yesterday, the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) office in Varanasi confirmed that an FIR was registered against 1000 Banaras Hindu University (BHU) students in Lanka police station for arson and other charges.

On September 24, Congress leaders P.L. Punia, Raj Babbar and Ajay Rai were detained by the police, ahead of their participation in the students' protest march at BHU.

The Uttar Pradesh Police on Saturday lathi-charged the BHU students, who were protesting since three days against alleged molestation of a University girl.

It was reported that the protesting students tried to enter the residence of the vice chancellor and when the deployed security forces tried to stop them, students became violent; it is then when the security forces used lathi-charged to disperse them.

The students alleged that the police thrashed them and dragged them by hair, but DM Varanasi, who was present on the spot, denied all such claims.

The ongoing protests outside the BHU campus triggered when a first-year female student of BHU alleged that she was molested by three bike-borne men outside the campus on Thursday.

The victim in the matter had claimed that she went to the university administration for complaining about the incident but the administration in lieu of taking any action against the molesters, shamed the victim for her awkward hostel timings.

Angered over the laid back attitude of the administration and lack of action from the side, the students staged protests outside the campus on Friday and blocked entry to the campus through the main gate.