Following two separate but related complaints, the university police arrested two professors of Gulbarga University — Ramesh Rathod, an English professor, and Veeresh Rachappa Badiger, professor and chairman of the Department of English — and produced them before the jurisdictional court here on Friday. The court has remanded them in judicial custody.
A student of the university and aspirant of Ph.D. course had, in her complaint to the police, accused Mr. Rathod, of sexual harassment when she had recently appeared for the Ph.D. interview. Mr. Rathod, in turn, lodged another complaint against Mr. Badiger accusing him of caste-based harassment.
Accepting both the complaints, the police booked Mr. Badiger under Section 354 of Indian Penal Code (assault or criminal force on woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and Mr. Badiger under The Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
According to police sources, Mr. Rathod, who belongs to the Scheduled Castes, held that Mr. Badiger, who belongs to Other Backward Class, hatched a conspiracy against him and instigated the woman to lodge a false complaint against him.
A police officer said that Mr. Rathod filed a complaint against Mr. Badiger to settle the score.
“We received both the complaints and booked cases under relevant IPC sections and the Act and produced the accused before court. The court has remanded them in judicial custody,” Chokla Rathod, Police Sub-Inspector, attached to University Police Station told The Hindu.