Online post alleging harassment by profs triggers row at Visva-Bharati

A controversy has erupted at Visva Bharati university in West Bengal over allegations of sexual and mental harassment made in an anonymous social media post. The university has denied the allegations, but a faculty member has filed a police complaint against three people, including the vice-chancellor, for alleged laxity in the matter. No student has come forward with a formal complaint so far.

Kolkata:

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A controversy has erupted at Visva Bharati, West Bengal’s only central university, over an anonymous social media post alleging sexual and mental harassment of a student by several professors of a specific department for two years.

The post on Facebook, dated August 11, was by a person who said she was a postgraduate student at the university.

The university has denied the allegations, but a faculty member filed a police complaint against three people, including vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty, for alleged laxity in the matter.

In her post in a Facebook group, VB Confessions, the student alleged she was “physically and mentally tortured by multiple teachers” of her department, after she entered her second year of a three-year undergraduate course.

“Coming to Visva-Bharati to study has turned into a curse for me. I am revealing this today because I cannot take the torture anymore. I am alive only because of my parents and my brother….,” the post, written in Bengali and reviewed by HT, said.

The post did not mention any details of when the incidents took place or any identification of the accused. HT could not independently verify the authenticity of the post.

After reports in the local media on August 12, the university dismissed what it called a “fabricated story”.

“Visva-Bharati condemns the publication of a fabricated story based on an anonymous post in Facebook. Without ascertaining the authenticity of the post, the local newspapers printed the story which is an act of irresponsibility,” the varsity said in a statement on August 13.

“The university never tolerates harassment and humiliation of any student and especially for our girl students, we take special care to protect their dignity and mental peace. This anonymous post is a fake one and the university has special mechanisms to deal with the cases of harassment if they are genuine. Visva-Bharati follows a zero-tolerance policy in this regard,” the statement added.

On Monday, Chakrabarty sat on a hunger strike for nine hours on the campus, condemning a purported social media campaign against the university. Visva Bharati faculty association secretary Kausik Bhattacharya filed a complaint at Santiniketan police station against Chakrabarty and two other varsity officials for “trying to shield the guilty”. Bhattacharya filed the complaint as a faculty member, without mentioning the association.

In the complaint, a copy of which HT has seen, Bhattacharya said the vice-chancellor should have referred the matter to the university’s internal complaint committee for a probe instead of declaring the Facebook post as fake.

By holding the hunger strike, Chakrabarty tried to shield the guilty, the police complaint said.

“We have received the complaint. The identity of the alleged victim is unknown. This poses a problem for an investigation,” a police officer from Birbhum district, where the institution is located, said on condition of anonymity.

Visva Bharati spokesperson Mahua Banerjee said no student had so far come forward with a complaint. “We still don’t know the identity of the person who wrote the Facebook post,” she said.

There was no reaction from the state government or any political party till Tuesday evening.