“We Can’t Listen To Every Girl,” BHU VC’s Ridiculous Statements Will Fill You With Rage

The students of Banaras Hindu University were outraged when a case of eve-teasing surfaced in the university premises. A student of the campus was harassed by three men on a motorcycle, who abused her and fled when she resisted their attempts. The woman alleged that the guards were seated 100 metres away from the place where the incident occurred and did nothing.

On going to the warden with her complaint, the warden asked her why she was coming late to the hostel. This sparked an outrage among the students regarding the dismissal of the security of women students in the campus and they sat in front of the main gate in protest. However, the situation escalated quickly resulting in lathi-charge by authorities.

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The Vice Chancellor of the institute, Girish Chandra Tripathi, spoke to Indian Express recently and he had ample things to say with regards to the incident. He said that while the incident is unfortunate, it was created by “outsiders”. He also added,

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On being asked to clarify who he thought were the “outsiders” who tried to use the molestation to take advantage of the situation for their personal gains, he said,

“First of all, it is not an incident of molestation, it is one of eve-teasing.The Prime Minister was to visit and that’s why, I feel, all this was done. The molestation was done to trigger this fiasco is what I feel.”

Commenting on the molestation, he justified that such incidents can happen and so, they do. The university houses 10,000 girls and it is difficult to take care of each of them.

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Dismissing the allegations that the university does not listen to students as rumours, Tripathi also said that he has never received any complaints from girl students and those who complain are associated with the student bodies and are only handful in number.

He also justified the use of force on students though lathi-charge and said that force was used on the ‘criminal elements’ and he has no idea about the force used on the girls. Terming the ‘gender discrimination’ issue in the campus as an allegation, he said that the institution does not have gender discrimination and because of the measures taken, girl students do not need to go the cyber library as WiFi is available in the hostel.

The Vice Chancellor, on being asked whether it is true that the WiFi was only installed two weeks ago while the boys hostel always had it, he responded by saying that,

“It was recently installed but that is what we are saying, we are doing our best for female students, working for their security in their best interests.”

He responded to the issue of different curfew timings for girls and boys by saying that it is for girls’ own safety that the curfew timings are 8 pm for one and 6 pm for one other hostel. He also added that the girls are allowed to stay past curfew on the submission of an application in the hostel.

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Although, he did clarify that the hostels were closed due to the unrest in the campus, his dismissal of the incident could spark further outrage. If a girl student has to shave her head to protect herself from sexual assault, how long before authorities begin to accept that they are wrong somewhere?

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