Gargi fest: Two more youths in police net

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police has arrested two more youths for allegedly molesting the students at Gargi College during a fest on February 6. One of them is a 19-year-old call centre employee, while the other is a 22-year-old graduate preparing for a competitive examination. As many as 21 more people, who had trespassed the college campus, have been identified.
Police sources said that out of the ten people arrested earlier, two were known to each other. Two others said that they loved attending fests at random colleges in Delhi University.
No woman at the college has come forward and submitted an individual complaint about the harassment yet. A lot of students had earlier taken to Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms, complaining of being groped, harassed and molested on the last day of the college fest where a singer was scheduled to perform.
A police officer privy to the investigation said: “Our team, including women officers, visited the college. But so far no student has given an account of her ordeal. For more accused to be identified and to take the case to its logical conclusion, the statements of the victims are required. The case has been registered on the basis of the complaint of the college principal.”
A member of the student body, however, said that the fact-finding committee of the college will be submitting the complaints and testimonies of the students to the police. The committee, which has 34 members, will collect the complaints till February 15.
Among the ten arrested, six are from Delhi University and two from technical universities in Noida. The remaining two are former Delhi University students.
Most of the accused claimed that they had reached the venue after their friends told them that they had passes for the fest and they could let them enter too.
Police said that they traced the accused after some of them were tagged being present at the Gargi festival. A few had even posted Instagram stories. Some others had uploaded videos on YouTube with a caption—‘How I entered Gargi without a pass’. Even though the videos have been deleted now, the cops are trying to trace the people who had uploaded them.
A police source said that the crowd outside tried to enter the premises by pushing the car of the caterer, which was parked outside gate number 1.
For the fest, each student had been given a pass, which they could give to anyone they wanted to invite. During interrogation, one of the accused told the police that he had reached the college along with his friend who had a pass.
“As crowd started swelling up by 4pm, the security personnel at the gate asked the people with passes to stand in a queue and the others to move aside. Some of the people outside were calling their friends inside, but could not gain entry,” said an officer.