JNU students demand FIR against professor

The JNU Students Union has demanded that the university register an FIR against a professor who was sacked last month after a varsity inquiry committee found him guilty in a case of alleged sexual harassment filed by a foreign scholar pursuing research under him.
Jawaharlal Nehru University had on December 21, terminated services of an Assistant Professor in the varsity's Department of Sociology after the Gender Sensitization Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH), the varsity's watchdog for dealing with such issues, found him guilty.
The complainant, a Bangladesh national, was pursuing research under the professor's supervision.
The Students Union today demanded that the varsity also report the matter to police as sexual abuse is a criminal offence.

The students will tomorrow march from the campus to Vasant Kunj police station to register their demand.
"Why has the university been sitting on the complaint for months? Termination alone cannot be the punishment for heinous crimes like rape. It is a criminal offence and we demand that an FIR be lodged so the law can punish him, " said JNUSU joint secretary Saurabh Kumar Sharma.

While the university spokesperson did not comment on the issue saying the matter is "confidential", repeated calls and text messages to the professor for his comments on the issue went unanswered.
The students' demand comes at a time, when JNU is under criticism over the maximum number of sexual abuse cases among all higher education institutes in the country.

The varsity had last week directed its students and faculty to refrain from "publicising" such incidents and maintain strict "confidentiality" in such cases.