BHU VC promises appropriate action against guilty

The Banaras Hindu University's (BHU) Vice Chancellor Girish Chandra Tripathy on Tuesday said that an inquiry committee has been formed under the chairmanship of the Ex chief justice of Allahabad High court V. K. Dixit to probe the violence which took place inside the varsity campus.

"The university will take appropriate action within its capacity based on the committee's recommendation," Tripathy told media.

"We hope we will get the detailed report on the dimensions related with the case," VC Tripathy added.

However, Tripathy refused to comment on the preliminary report submitted by Varanasi Commissioner Nitin Gokarn which dubbed the university administration as guilty, saying that he has not read the report.

Further voicing concern in connection with university's image being tarnished Tripathy said, "A person's dignity has an importance, but an institution also has some dignity, we should consider the dignity of both person and institution, because a person can speak in protection of their dignity but institutions require our voices to protect theirs."

"My only prayer is that such a solution comes up that ensures such incidents do not happen in future," he added.

In the report submitted to Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary Rajiv Kumar earlier in the day, Commissioner Gokarn has blamed the university administration for not handling the matter in a sensitive manner.

The Commissioner also alleged that BHU neither dealt with the victim's complaint in a sensitive manner nor handled the situation on time.

The Uttar Pradesh Police on Saturday lathi-charged the BHU students, who were protesting for 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.