No witness appears before probe panel
VARANASI : No witness has appeared yet before the magisterial panel probing the September 23 violence and cane charge on women students on the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) campus.
The magisterial inquiry committee has now said people can record their statements on October 10. Besides the magisterial probe, at least three other inquiries into the September 23 incident are in progress.
The BHU was rocked by events that unfolded shortly after September 23 midnight when university guards and police cane charged students protesting alleged inaction on a complaint of molestation on the campus two days before.
Several students, mostly women, and police personnel were injured in the crackdown and clashes.
A day after the violence, the district administration constituted the one-member panel headed by additional district magistrate (enforcement) Munindra Nath Upadhyaya to probe the matter.
The panel began its work and asked students, locals, professors and others who wanted to provide any evidence or record their statement to appear before it at its office on the district magistrate’s premises by October 5.
But no one appeared before it.
Upadhyaya told HT, “Earlier it was decided that statements regarding the incident will be recorded by October 5. I waited even the next day. But no one appeared before the panel. Therefore, I fixed October 10 for recording the statements of students, professors and commoners.” Upadhyaya will be available at the LD guesthouse on the BHU campus between 11am and 3pm that day to record the statements. However, Upadhyaya said he had received documents and reports from officials about the incident.
A committee headed by justice VK Dikshit, a retired judge of the Allahabad high court, is also probing the September 23 incident. Before the judicial probe began, the BHU administration constituted a probe panel of its own. Thirty students and a few others recorded their statements before this committee.
National Commission for Women (NCW) member Rekha Sharma has also started a probe. She has held non-communication on the part of BHU vice chancellor Girish Chandra Tripathi responsible for the violence. The crime branch is also investigating the case. The BHU vice chancellor is on indefinite leave.