A student from Amity University was repeatedly slapped and abused by his classmates inside a parked car in the Lucknow campus.
The incident took place on August 26 in the university's parking lot, when the victim, identified as Shikhar Mukesh Kesarwani, came to the campus in a friend's vehicle to attend classes.
A first information report (FIR) has been registered against five students – Ayush Yadav, Jahnvi Mishra, Milay Banerjee, Vivek Singh and Aryaman Shukla, NDTV reported.
A video of the incident, which has gone viral on social media, shows a female student, sitting on the front seat of the vehicle, repeatedly slapping Shikhar, who is sitting on the back passenger seat. Hindustan Times could not independently identify the authenticity of the video.
The female student, while slapping Shikhar, asks him to put his hand down each time he raises his arm to hide his face. She also asks Shikhar, "Kya bola tha tumne (what did you say)? Character? Character?" and goes on to slap him a couple more times.
{{/usCountry}}The female student, while slapping Shikhar, asks him to put his hand down each time he raises his arm to hide his face. She also asks Shikhar, "Kya bola tha tumne (what did you say)? Character? Character?" and goes on to slap him a couple more times.
{{/usCountry}}Meanwhile, another male student intervenes and aggressively asks him to put his hand down, saying, “Haath neeche kar.”
The male student, referred by others as Ayush, then starts slapping Shikhar, while repeatedly asking the latter to keep his hands down. Ayush is also seen aggressively pushing away Shikhar's hand, which is in covering his face, to slap him on his right cheek.
In the 101-second video, the male student also threatens Shikhar. “Character ka bola tha... haath neeche kar... You will talk about Jahnvi... You will talk about Soumya..," he is heard saying.
Victim's father alleges son no longer attends college
The victim's father, Mukesh Kesarwani, lodged a complaint after the incident. He has alleged that his second, a second year B.A. LLB student, was traumatised after the incident and does not attend college, NDTV reported.
Kesarwani said that on the day of the incident, is son had been picked up by a friend, Soumya Singh Yadav, to go to college. When the two reached the parking lot of the university, the accused students came to the vehicle, and told Shikhar that they needed to speak to him.
The father said that the students then entered the vehicle and “threatened and verbally abused” his son for the next 45 minutes, according to the NDTV reported.
Kesarwani further said that his son had undergone a ligament surgery days before the assault, and had been walking with the help of a stick. “Jahnvi Mishra and Ayush Yadav then slapped my son at least 50 to 60 times and also abused me and my parents. They also threatened to kill us,” the father was quoted as saying.