UGC team probing student harassment incident

Bhubaneswar: Threedays after the death of a 20-year-old woman college student, a fact-finding team of UGC on Friday reached Balasore to probe into the circumstances that forced the student to set herself on fire over alleged inaction on her sexual harassment complaint against a teacher.

The four-member UGC fact-finding team, under the chairmanship of Professor Raj Kumar Mittal, reached here to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident and conduct a probe into the harassment of the student in Fakir Mohan (Autonomous) College in Balasore. The other members of the panel are Prof Sushma Yadav, Dr Neerja Gupta and UGC Joint Secretary Asima Mangala.

“This is a very sensitive case. We need to understand everything and do the job objectively,” Mittal told reporters as his team reached FM College campus here. The team met the college principal in-charge Firoz Kumar Padhi. They will also meet different stakeholders, including members of the Internal Complaint Committee (ICC) and students of the integrated BEd department, an official said.

Meanwhile, the Odisha Higher Education department’s three-member high-level committee, headed by Kaliprasanna Mohapatra, also reached FM College in Balasore and met the members of the ICC committee, including three student members. The ICC members were the focus of investigation after the deceased woman student’s father squarely blamed them for his daughter’s death.

“Had the ICC given a proper report, my daughter would have been alive today,” her father had said after the student succumbed to 95 per cent burn injuries on Monday night. However, Dr Jayashree Mishra, Assistant Professor of Psychology and head of the ICC, had claimed that in their report on July 9 they had suggested the removal of the accused HoD of the integrated BEd department, Samir Kumar Sahoo, from his post.

The woman student set herself ablaze on July 12, three days after the ICC recommended the removal of HoD from his post, another member of the panel said, adding that the Odisha Police Crime Branch had grilled the members of the ICC on Thursday. The then principal had asked the ICC to probe into allegations made by the woman student on June 30. The ICC started its investigation on July 3 and submitted its report saying that the accused HoD was found harassing students in other forms due to his strict actions, like asking students to stand for more than 30 minutes for small mistakes, but there was “no evidence” of sexual harassment as alleged by the woman student.

The deceased woman student was debarred from appearing for the semester examination on June 29 by the HoD on the ground of insufficient attendance. Though there was a notification issued by the HoD stating that nine students would be debarred from the semester examination, including the deceased woman student, however, the eight others could finally write the examination. Denial of appearing for the examination could have hurt her a lot, a member of the ICC said.