JNU students protest against bail to Johri

NEW DELHI: Hundreds of student of the Jawaharlal Nehru University on Wednesday took to street while holding banners against the accused professor, Atul Johari, for the alleged sexual harassment charges against him by students.

The protests came after Johri was on Tuesday arrested by police and then granted bail by Patiala House court within 80 minutes of his arrest.

A victim student, while talking to Millennium Post, disclosed that they have been forced and threatened to withdraw their complaint against the professor. She also said that earlier she had raised voice against these vulnerable but professor took academic action against her instead, which made her to ‘surrender' to the prevailing activities.

“For many years, many women have been subjected to sexual harassment. If we do not speak up now, the situation will not change and other female students who are going to pursue their research under professor Johri's super vision would have to go through similar experience. Recently, when one colleague of us wrote an e-mail which got circulated in the media, we thought, it's high time that we come out and speak,” said a complainant.

She added that after the December 16, we thought that the discourse around sexual harassment has taken a significant direction in our society and it's seriousness got registered and women could stand up to their harasser. But, when yesterday, an arrested accused in eight different cases of grave sexual harassment charges was given bail in a few minutes. “We stand to question whether still sexual harassment is considered sufficiently seriously in our society. We were shocked the way the accused received bail yesterday,” she fumed.

On March 16, after eight JNU students filed sexual harassment complaints against Johri, cops registered a case against the professor on charges of outraging the modesty of women. “We are appalled by the way he managed to get bail in all the eight cases within few minutes the very next few hours,” another compliant said. She further added that even Delhi Police did not seek remand of the accused for further interrogation.

“The JNU administration have not acknowledge the fact that we already approached them to suspend him,” said another victim student.