Gorkha Students, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, condemn the forceful Stripping, Sexual Assault and Blackmailing of woman Student from North East at Visvabharati University in Shantiniketan, West Bengal
A first-year college student who hails from the northeastern state of Sikkim was sexually assaulted and black mailed by her seniors for continuously three days at VisvaBharati University in Shantiniketan, West Bengal. The shocking incident came to light when the girl’s father came to the University to file a complaint. According to news reports, the girl was forcefully stripped by three senior students and an outsider and they also clicked picture and videos of the heinous incident. These men then used it to blackmail the girl by threatening to post these videos and images in the internet and coerce the innocent girl into repeated sexually assault.
Again, to the utter bewilderment and disgust, for the girl’s parents, the university authorities not only tried to brush the matter under the carpet but also discouraged them from filing a police complaint. It was however, only after reports of the sexual assault started emerging in the media that the university authorities were forced to ask the sexual harassment committee to look into the matter. The father reported that her daughter was so traumatized that she had to be kept in the hospital for a day. The university authorities added insult to injury when they offered money to the father to “buy clothes” for his daughter since she was “stripped”.
This incident comes as another blow to the issue of women safety in the university and raises serious questions on the authorities’ seriousness in such cases. For already there have been allegations of sexual assault against the University Vice-Chancellor Sushanta Datta Gupta in a separate case. Continuous media and student pressure from all over Bengal has forced the University into action. Even though the three students stand expelled from the University and have been arrested, the apathy of the university officials is reflection of act of patriarchal management of sexual violence. Gender does not exist in social vacuum but is always contextualized through social fabric of class, caste and race. The sheer audacity of students who perpetuated this assault and the consequent apathy and belittling of issue on part of administration can be only understood as an act of gender violence juxtaposed with racial discrimination. Surely in casteist and feudal country like India, gender cannot be race neutral. More perplexing is the silence of larger northeastern community on this issue.
We salute the fighting spirit of the women student and condemn this gory incident and effort of patriarchal administration to shield the perpetrator in strongest possible words and demand immediate strict action against the students involved in this heinous crime.
Gorkha Students, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Submitted by :
Dawa Sherpa
Email: dawa0079@gmail.com
A first-year college student who hails from the northeastern state of Sikkim was sexually assaulted and black mailed by her seniors for continuously three days at VisvaBharati University in Shantiniketan, West Bengal. The shocking incident came to light when the girl’s father came to the University to file a complaint. According to news reports, the girl was forcefully stripped by three senior students and an outsider and they also clicked picture and videos of the heinous incident. These men then used it to blackmail the girl by threatening to post these videos and images in the internet and coerce the innocent girl into repeated sexually assault.
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| Gorkha Students, Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi Condemn Condemn Sexual Assault and Blackmailing of Sikkim Girl |
This incident comes as another blow to the issue of women safety in the university and raises serious questions on the authorities’ seriousness in such cases. For already there have been allegations of sexual assault against the University Vice-Chancellor Sushanta Datta Gupta in a separate case. Continuous media and student pressure from all over Bengal has forced the University into action. Even though the three students stand expelled from the University and have been arrested, the apathy of the university officials is reflection of act of patriarchal management of sexual violence. Gender does not exist in social vacuum but is always contextualized through social fabric of class, caste and race. The sheer audacity of students who perpetuated this assault and the consequent apathy and belittling of issue on part of administration can be only understood as an act of gender violence juxtaposed with racial discrimination. Surely in casteist and feudal country like India, gender cannot be race neutral. More perplexing is the silence of larger northeastern community on this issue.
We salute the fighting spirit of the women student and condemn this gory incident and effort of patriarchal administration to shield the perpetrator in strongest possible words and demand immediate strict action against the students involved in this heinous crime.
Gorkha Students, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Submitted by :
Dawa Sherpa
Email: dawa0079@gmail.com
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