‘Groped on campus, BHU guards asked why wasn’t I indoors’

VARANASI: The three-page FIR by the molestation victim at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) has made shocking disclosure on how men on motorcycles had groped her. She has alleged that security guards posted on the campus, instead of coming to her rescue, questioned why she and her friends were outside their hostel rooms after 6pm.

TOI has accessed the FIR by the 21-year-old student, from Delhi, whose molestation has triggered widespread protests, leading to violence and arson in the campus.

According to the FIR, the assault took place at 6.20pm on September 21, on the eve of PM Narendra Modi's visit to his Lok Sabha constituency. "I was near Bharat Kala Bhawan at 6.20pm. I was wearing salwar suit. Suddenly, two motorcycle-borne youths came and inserted their hands inside my suit. They then sped away. Due to fading light, I could not recognise the registration numbers," the FIR says.

She laments how repeated pleas by her and her friends to the guards invoked scornful remarks. "While I was almost unconscious and weeping, my friends approached the guards. But their reaction was strange. They made sarcastic comments on why we were outside our hostel rooms after 6pm," the FIR adds. The girl has sought harsh punishment for the molesters so that "such an incident doesn't happen with anyone else".

Meanwhile, it's been five days since the molestation incident, the Varanasi police have not recorded the statements of the complainant—a pre-requisite to start investigations into the case.

In-charge of Lanka police station SI Sanjiv Mishra claimed the crime took place on September 21 and the FIR was lodged the next day.

"Before we could reach out to the complainant, she had left for her home in Delhi on September 23," Mishra told TOI. Though police were aware of the molestation and its fallout since September 21, the men in uniform did nothing to trace the culprits and waited for a formal written complaint, which reached them the next day.

Police lodged an FIR but did nothing to arrest the accused who misbehaved with the girls. Protesting BHU students said police apathy added to the crisis. "Had police acted promptly against the accused on September 22, the situation would not have deteriorated," said an undergraduate who is a classmate of the complainant.