Arya News - The incident brought to the fore unsafe campus environs for girl students in higher educational institutions and damaged the government’s image.
BHUBANESWAR – The self-immolation bid by an undergraduate girl student after her complaint of prolonged sexual harassment by a teacher not being addressed in a government-run autonomous college in Odisha’s Balasore district has triggered a massive political controversy. Although the accused teacher has been arrested and the government has constituted a probe committee.
The unsavory episode, which brought to the fore unsafe campus environs for girl students in higher educational institutions, severely damaged the government’s image, keeping in view the fact that the State has witnessed a spurt in crime against women during the one-year-old BJP Government in Odisha.
Gauging the widespread anger, the Government has initiated damage-control exercises even as the undergraduate girl student sustaining over 90 per cent burn injury is battling for life at the AIIMS-Bhubaneswar.
Chief Minister Mohan Majhi rushed to the AIIMS immediately from the airport after arriving from Delhi. A select band of his cabinet colleagues is understood to have been entrusted to monitor the situation and save the government from further damage due to the incident.
The authorities at the helm do not seem to have learnt a lesson either in tackling or curbing sexual harassment cases on campus. The suicide of a Nepalese student earlier this year in her hostel room on the campus of a private university had dented the government’s image. The victim’s complaint of sexual harassment was not looked into by the varsity authorities.
Meanwhile, the National Commission for Women (NCW) said it had taken suo motu cognizance of a deeply disturbing report from Odisha, where a 20-year-old student of a government college in Balasore allegedly set herself ablaze after facing sexual harassment and academic threats by the Head of Department.
Deeply traumatised over an assistant professor seeking sexual favour, the undergraduate girl student at the Fakir Mohan College in Balasore had set herself afire by pouring petrol last night in front of the principal’s chamber. The victim had brought the matter to the notice of the college authorities and local police, but to no avail.
She had accused assistant professor Samir Kumar Sahu, heading the education department, of seeking sexual favour and threatening to sabotage her academic career.
Sensing the gravity of the incident, the Opposition in the state — BJD and Congress — have gone out to target the Government with former Chief Minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik saying that the young woman was denied justice at every level.
The youth and student wings of both the Opposition parties hit the streets and marched towards the Chief Minister’s residence to register a protest.
“A young student resorting to self-immolation inside one of Odisha’s premier universities is both shocking and deeply distressing. I fervently pray to Lord Jagannatha for her swift recovery from the grievous burn injuries”, Patnaik said in ‘X’ post while urging the Governor (Dr Hari Babu Kambhampati) to intervene and ensure that the student receives the justice she so desperately sought.
“For months, she lived in fear and anguish. On July 1, in a desperate plea for help, she posted her grievance on social media, tagging several top officials. But with no action forthcoming, she tragically resorted to setting herself on fire, right outside the principal’s chamber, in a final attempt to end her suffering”, Patnaik said.
“This tragic incident lays bare the stark reality of how she was denied justice, despite repeatedly voicing her grievances from the college principal to the higher education minister and right up to the Union Minister and Odisha CM,” alleged Patnaik in the social media post.
The accused, Samir Kumar Sahu, assistant professor, education department, has in the meanwhile been arrested, and Principal Dilip Ghosh was placed under suspension.
Meanwhile, the three-member committee, constituted by the state government, has begun a probe into the circumstances that led to the self-immolation attempt by the undergraduate girl student of FM (Autonomous) College in Balasore district yesterday.