Another JNU professor booked for ‘sexual assault’

NEW DELHI: A teacher at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been booked for allegedly molesting, sexually harassing and threatening a female research scholar. This is the third sexual harassment case against teachers to surface in the university in the last month.

Milind Dumbere, DCP (southwest), confirmed a complaint had been filed on Friday.

“A PhD scholar from JNU filed a police complaint and alleged that she was molested, sexually harassed and threatened allegedly by (a teacher) of the School of Social Sciences (SSS) of the university. A case under sections 354, 506, and 509 of IPC has been registered,” he said.

HT is not naming the teacher as the investigation is currently underway, and a formal arrest is yet to be made.

While expressing solidarity with the complainant and demanding that the police investigate the matter to the fullest, the JNU Students’ Union, asked the university to “take responsibility for the total breakdown of the institutional redressal to address such matters of sexual violence.” They also demanded that all accused professors be suspended till inquiries are complete.

The current JNU-unit president of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), Vijay Kumar, said in a Facebook post, “Another Communist professor and ex-JNUTA (JNU Teachers’ Association) convenor sexually assaulted his student.

ABVP demands immediate suspension and arrest of this demon professor.”

“He had allegedly accessed the complainant’s laptop also at some point to send inappropriate emails. He has also allegedly misbehaved with her.

The student has not been able to make submissions either,” Kumar said.

The teacher in question, when contacted, said he has not been notified about anything of this nature yet, but said he knew who the complainant was, and he was being targeted because he had requested for more time to review the de-registered student’s PhD thesis and allowing her to re-register for the programme.

“This is a fourth year PhD student, who had de-registered and gone to Denmark two years ago. She had come back and asked on April 2 that she be allowed to re-register and complete her PhD, and gave me the first preliminary draft of her thesis.

I had called for a review committee meeting on April 11, and even said she should be allowed to re-register, but I had not finished reading her thesis.

How can I finish reading an entire PhD thesis, I have not seem before at all, in just a few days’ time? The committee said that they would hold their decision till I was done reading more of the thesis,” he said.

A PhD scholar from JNU filed a police complaint and alleged that she was molested, sexually harassed and threatened allegedly by (a teacher)... A case under sections 354, 506, and 509 of IPC has been registered

MILIND DUMBERE, DCP (southwest)