Thampu offered PhD bribe to scuttle harassment case?
NEW DELHI: The St Stephen’s student who has accused a teacher of sexual harassment on Thursday released audio clips of conversations reportedly with college principal Valson Thampu in which he asks her to take back her complaint to avoid “complications” and assures her she will complete her degree by June if she does so.
“Ishwar par bharosa rakhiye… you have to take that complaint back, aaj hi karoge nahi to complication ho jayega (sic),” Thampu reportedly told her.
Another clip has the accused faculty member, chemistry professor Satish Kumar, allegedly offering to write her PhD and ask his friends to chip in. Both he and the principal assure her they will make sure she completed her PhD on time.
HT could not independently verify the contents of the clips, which the student claimed she recorded on her mobile phone during meetings in the principal’s office on January 7, 10 and 19.
She handed over the tapes to the police. Thampu did not respond to calls and an email from HT. The mobile phone of the accused faculty member, chemistry professor Satish Kumar, was
also off.
The student had filed a police complaint on June 19 accusing Kumar of molesting her in October 2013 and of sexually harassing her for months before that. In her complaint, she also accused Thampu of trying to hush up the matter. Following the controversy, Kumar stepped down as bursar and moved the Delhi high court alleging that the victim had concocted the story.
“The recording will prove my innocence. It is clear in the recordings that the principal first tried to convince me to make the complaint an internal matter and in the next meeting, slyly suggested if the matter was to be an internal matter, then I would have to remove the term sexual harassment,” the student told HT. According to the transcripts, the student asked Thampu: “So, if I withdraw my case, what do I have to give you in writing?” The principal’s reply: “Give me another statement for the complaint saying that I faced some difficulties.”
He then reportedly went on to suggest the complainant remove the term sexual harassment, saying, “If any reference to sexual harassment is there… I am already at fault, I should have passed it on (to the internal com- plaints committee) yesterday.”
Accusing Thampu of “double speak”, the young woman told HT, “The principal… tried to confuse me and very subtly tried to protect the harasser and the college image. The case was of sexual assault and Thampu should have taken strict action right away to protect my dignity and not threaten and talk me out of it.”