On March 16, 2018, a complaint was filed at the Vasant Kunj Police Station in Delhi by seven students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University against Professor Atul Johri. They accused him of outraging the modesty of women by using words and gestures.
The FIR was filed after the students got no support from the Vice Chancellor and other administrative authorities of the university for investigating the case.
According to JNU’s student council president, they had to wait in the premises of the police station till 3 AM and were asked to file one single FIR instead of the many individual ones they had previously planned for. A few days later, however, the police asked them to file separate FIRs.
According to the law, the accused should have been arrested, and then the police should have undertaken further investigation. However, in this case, Prof Atul Johri (who has also been a spokesperson for the RSS and the BJP, holding various administrative posts in the university and being in close touch with the Vice Chancellor and other administrative members) was arrested after four days of waiting and got bail in just 80 minutes.
The authority of the university said that they haven’t received any complaints from the students. However, the students have unanimously reported that this has been the regular behaviour of the professor and students have approached the administration multiple times. Even before the case, the students had allegedly asked the VC for help – and yet, they were not given any help. The case was also not filed with the Gender Sensitisation Committee, as it had been replaced by the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) which, the students complain, is too close to the administration.
Students also alleged that the complainants are being pressurised and threatened to take back their statements, and that the administration has been trying to shield the professor from being accused, by highlighting to attendance issue. However, after seeing the attendance log, it seems that there has been no issue of attendance among the students.
The students want the professor to be suspended and a fair committee to be recruited for an investigation into the case. Opposing the unfair administrative practices, students and teachers protested and wanted to march to the Parliament Street on March 23, 2018, without disrupting the traffic. They were ready to cooperate with the police, but after a few moments of the march, the police tried stopping them using water cannons and beat them up brutally.
There has been no statement from the side of the police, but the students made it clear that they will keep protesting against the administration until they get a fair decision. Now it will be interesting to see whether the JNUites will be able to prove their allegations right or if power will define the justice and show the partiality that the Indian justice system is famous for.
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