New director behaving the same way as predecessor, complain protesting NIEPVD students

Students of the National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Visual Disabilities (NIEPVD) on Friday accused its newly appointed director Kumar Vikram Simha Rao of “behaving the same way” as his predecessor Anuradha Dalmiya.

On Thursday, Rao took charge of the institute, where some girl students have accused a teacher of molesting them. Dalmiya, who was under fire from the students, was transferred to National Institute of Mentally Handicapped (NIMH), Secunderabad, for three months.

Nearly 120 students studying the institute were demanding her removal from the institute for her alleged negligence towards their prolonged demand of improvement in facilities. The students have also been demanding arrest of one of teachers Suchit Narang, who is accused for allegedly molesting some girl students.

“Today we all had gone to meet the new director to discuss our demands with him. We were putting our part before him, but instead of listening to them fully, he asked us to attend the classes by Monday and went from there,” said Dinesh, a class 12 student of the institute who is among the students leading the protest.

While speaking to HT over phone, he added, “During the meeting, we demanded deadlines by the institute for our demands on which he said that it would be decided by the institute. Interrupting us in between, he said, complaint boxes would be put in the institute for us and we should end our protest to join the classes which we won’t.”

Another student of the institute, Vikas confirmed Dinesh’s allegations, and said, “It seems he is behaving in the same manner for which we were demanding the removal of Dalmiya.”

Demanding termination of Dalmiya, he said, “Dalmiya has been transferred for three months instead she should have been terminated for what she did. Also, she has been transferred to NIMH as director for which she don’t have the required qualifications. It is wrong.”

HT tried to contact Rao but failed.

Meanwhile, Rajpur police of city are yet to nab Narag, the teacher accused of allegedly molesting some girls in the institute. Police claims he is on the run.

“Police have been searching him at his whereabouts in the city and other places. He is absconding and would soon be arrested by police,” said investigating officer, sub-inspector Vinita Chauhan.

Narang was booked under relevant sections of IPC and POCSO Act on August 18 in Rajpur police station.

Members of All India Confederation of the Blind (AICB) have alleged that former director of NIEPVD Dalmiya did not have required qualifications to be given the post of the director.

Secretary general of AICB JL Kaul said, “We had filed an RTI into the matter. On the basis of the information, we got from that, we realised that she did not have the necessary qualifications to be the director of the institute.”

As per a copy of the RTI accessed by HT, Dalmia had listed her qualifications as ‘M. Phil, Masters (Music) and Master level credits combining special education and administration, Vanderbilt University, USA’. The RTI said Dalmiya had not submitted any other documents except her curriculum vitae along with her application dated 10.03.2006.

The RTI also stated: “Specific name of any officer who checked/verified all the documents/certificates is not available in the records.”

A letter from the Vanderbilt University stated that she attended “graduate level classes in the Fall 1991/Spring 1992 semesters”. Dalmiya denied the allegations. “All my documents have been verified. This is just a mean attempt at harassing me mentally,” she said.

First Published: Aug 25, 2018 02:22 IST