Stephen's teachers petition to DCW, NCW against Thampu's FB

Objecting to St Stephen's Principal Valson Thampu's facebook posts about sexual harassment complaint of a research scholar, 30 teachers of the college have sought the intervention of National and state Commission for Women.
In a petition sent to the chiefs of National Commission for Women (NCW) and Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) as well as Supreme Council of St Stephen's, the teachers attacked Thampu's clean-chit to the accused professor.
"Despite a criminal investigation pending and the matter sub-judice, Thampu had in a series of facebook posts come out in open support of Satish Kumar and had terms his defence of him as the most heroic thing he had done in his life.

"He had also taunted the sexual harassment victim by saying that if she had come to him directly he would have helped. He had gone to term the sexual harassment complaint a 'diabolic lie'. Thampu had also hit out at women's rights groups who supported the victim as 'handlers'," the joint petition said.
"We demand strong action against Thampu for his highly improper comments and verbal attacks on the Phd Scholar as well as members of the staff who had spoken out against the sexual harassment episode and the college's handling of the issue," it added.
In the most recent Facebook post, Thampu claimed that he only "stood by a disabled colleague who was hounded precisely because he was upright and incorruptible". In a separate post, he used terms like "I curse you" and "Monster" to describe a particular "teacher" who is, according to him, behind concocting the sexual harassment charges against the accused.

DCW had last month taken cognizance of Thampu's controversial Facebook posts and issued him a show-cause notice.

The PhD scholar had approached police in July last year, alleging that she was molested by Satish Kumar, an assistant professor in the college's Chemistry Department with 85 per cent disability.
She had also accused college principal, Valson Thampu of "shielding" the teacher when the matter was reported to him.
The allegations against Thampu had paved way for demands for his resignation by certain students, teachers and women rights group.
Thampu, who will retire this month, was not available for his comments on the issue.