Less than four months after a 10-year-old student was forced to lick her urine by a hostel warden, Visva-Bharati university founded by Rabindranath Tagore was back in the news for the wrong reasons on Tuesday.
The university removed its dean of students’ welfare Sidhartha Deb Mukherjee from his post and told him to go on leave after a 24-year-old PhD aspirant from Manipur complained of being molested by him on October 4, two days before her interview.

Deb was to have been her research guide.

The victim, who has completed her M.Sc. in Agriculture from Visva-Bharati (VB) complained to vice-chancellor Sushanta Duttagupta about being molested by Mukherjee.

She also wrote that she would no longer like to do her PhD from the university. “My self-respect is more important for me,” she said in her complaint.

The victim said Mukherjee called her to his chamber and molested her when she was transferring some files from her pen-drive to his computer.

When she protested Mukherjee asked her to behave with him as she would with her boyfriend, she alleged.

“We have sent the matter to the sections concerned and are acting on it seriously,” said VB spokesperson Amrit Sen.

When HT tried to contact the victim on Tuesday, she didn’t take the call and Mukherjee’s mobile was switched off.