Vadodara: Alleged sexual harassment of a girl student of M S University’s faculty of technology and engineering (FTE) rocked the university campus on Saturday.
Scores of students from the faculty led by Vidyarthi Vikas Sangh (VVS) thronged the university head office premises demanding justice for the girl student, who had complained of mental and physical harassment by an associate professor of applied physics department at FTE.
When the large group of students demanded a meeting with MSU vice-chancellor (VC) professor Parimal Vyas, the latter refused to come out and meet the agitating students, which further aggravated the situation.
After a stand-off that continued for nearly two hours, agitated students sat on a protest outside the main entrance gate of the head office. The girl student herself called the 181 Abhayam women helpline which rushed to the university head office. Amid the ruckus, a couple of student leaders allegedly misbehaved with proctor professor Hari Kataria, who had offered to meet the agitating students after which the university officials sought intervention of police.
MSU officials, who later met the agitated students and the girl complainant, assured strict action against the accused teacher. According to university officials, after FTE dean professor Arun Pratap had received a complaint from the girl student, he had constituted a probe panel on March 3 under the convenorship of professor D S Sharma, head of mechanical engineering department.
“Based on the interim report that was submitted by the committee to the dean of the faculty, we have decided to relieve the teacher from all the teaching work including theory and practical,” said MSU registrar Neerja Jaiswal.
“Also, he will not be assigned any kind of examination duty including conduct/ assessment of theory/ practical/ project work among others. He will not be permitted to guide students/ research scholars for dissertation/ project work/ research degrees among others,” she said.
The university will take final decision against the accused teacher based on the final report that will be submitted by the committee which according to university officials had conducted eight meetings so far.
Vyas has issued directives to the committee to submit the final report at the earliest. “It is very unfortunate that even as we have all the systems in place to ensure that students facing grievances get justice, there are some groups which want to unnecessarily spoil the atmosphere at the campus,” said Vyas.
Sources in the university suggest that the accused teacher in the past too had faced such complaints from students who alleged mental and physical harassment by him.
Scores of students from the faculty led by Vidyarthi Vikas Sangh (VVS) thronged the university head office pre... Read More
