Bhubaneswar : Less than a week after a 20-year-old B.Ed student in a Balasore college attempted self-immolation to protest inaction and harassment following her complaints of sexual harassment by a professor, and three days after her death, it has emerged that 71 of her 100 classmates wrote a letter on July 1, supporting the professor against whom she complained.
Her family, friends, and even some classmates say the letter shows how everyone “ganged up” against her at prompting of college administration.
The two page letter written in Odia accused the girl of levelling false allegation against head of the department of teachers’ education, Samir Kumar Sahoo at Fakir Mohan(Autonomous) College . It came a day after the woman first lodged a complaint with then college principal Dilip Ghose accusing Sahoo of sexual harassment and mental torture, and hailed Sahoo as a “great teacher who is known for his amiable ways”.
” As an internal complaints committee has been formed on the basis of the complaint by a woman student without any shred of evidence, the complainant should be asked to submit video evidence. If the woman is unable to submit any evidence to support her claims, then she and the individuals supporting her should be expelled from the college indefinitely,” said the letter signed by 71 students of the college of which 41 were women and classmate of the victim. HT has reviewed a copy of the letter.
The students in their letter further accused the woman of levelling the sexual harassment allegation after she was debarred from writing the internal exam due to low attendance.
The deceased woman’s brother alleged that the letter shows how the head of the department sought to derail a fair probe. “All attempts were made to assassinate the character of my sister after she lodged the complaint, both inside the college and through social media platforms. When all attempts were made to sway sentiment, how can the ICC probe be fair? That’s why my sister lost all hopes of getting justice,” he said.
A friend of the victim said the woman would have been alive had everyone not ganged up against her. “Imagine what would be the mental condition of a girl where most of her classmates are talking bad about her character. The head of department would mark her absent if she turned up for the classes two or three minutes late. He was deliberately failing her in several papers . If this is not harassment then what it is?”
On July 12, the friend says she stepped away for lunch and came back to see the woman burning. “I am sure the principal said something that hurt her, pushing her to take such a drastic step. She was broken and exhausted.”
Her roommate said the night before the woman died, she seemed very anxious. “When I woke up at 3 am, I found her awake. She was very upset of not being allowed to writer the internal exam on June 30 over low attendance though she attended classes. She told me that the head of department was picking on her. She was very upset over the comments made on her character on social media by student wings of the Biju Janata Dal and the Congress (National Students’ Union of India). Ironically, the same students now speak of justice for her.”
Meanwhile, investigation into her death gathered pace with the crime against women section of state CID questioning the family members of the victim in Bhograi area as well as members of the Internal Complaints Committee that probed allegations of sexual harassment against Sahoo. On Thursday, the team led by inspector general of police S Shyni analysed the call detail records of the victim as well as the CCTV footage of the college corridor and the petrol pump near the college from where petrol was bought in a 1 litre mineral water bottle.
The CAW team is probing whether Sahoo has a history of harassment and will also investigate how he managed to mobilise a large number of students to meet the principal to lodge a complaint against the victim. The team is also investigating why the college principal did not flag the issue with the higher education department and take preventive measure. The role of the local police is also being probed by the team.
Police on July 12 charged Sahoo and Ghose under six sections of Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita including section 108 (abetment of suicide) that carries imprisonment for 10 years and fine apart from section 75(1)(ii)(demand or request for sexual favors as a form of sexual harassment), section 78 (stalking), section 79(eve -teasing), section 351 (2) (criminal intimidation) and section 3(5) (common intention). After the preliminary investigation by CAW, more stringent sections will be added to the FIR, said a member of the team.
In the FIR lodged at the Sahadevkhunta police station on July 12, the cousin of the victim alleged that Samir Kumar Sahoo, head of the department of teachers’ education of the college had asked her for sexual favours. When she did not agree, he started harassing her, the cousin claimed. The woman complained to the principal Dillip Kumar Ghosh who took Sahoo’s side, he (the cousin) added. “Today, July 12 between 12 noon and 1230, the principal called her to his office and forced her to apologise to Samir Kumar Sahoo and also coerced her to withdraw the complaint filed against him. The principal of FM College and Samir Sahoo are totally responsible for her suicide,” he wrote in the FIR.
Apart from the probe by police, a four-member fact-finding team from UGC headed by Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University professor and UGC member Raj Kumar Mittal on Friday started examining circumstances surrounding the incident, assess compliance with the stipulated regulatory provisions, and suggest measures to prevent such incidents in future. The UGC team will submit its report in a week. A three-member team of the state higher education department led by director of higher education Kali Prasanna Mohapatra on Friday questioned all nine members of the internal complaints committee including three student representatives and college employees who were witness to the incident on July 12.
The Odisha government on Friday asked all universities and colleges in Odisha to organise sensitisation workshop on the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 and UGC Regulations, 2015 for both staff members and students.