Bengal's Visva Bharati student complains of sexual harassment

Santiniketan, West Bengal: The Visva Bharati University authority is looking into a complaint by a girl student of Kala Bhavan that she was "sexually harassed" by three students of the same department.

"We have received a complaint through the principal of Kala Bhavan. We have summoned a meeting immediately and have  already started our proceedings to probe the complaint," Mousumi Bhattacharya, Chairperson of the Internal Complaint Committee Against Sexual Harassment, said.

"We have talked to the girl and her father. We shall complete the investigation and submit report to the concerned authority as early as possible," she said late last night. Today, the girl and her father were first taken to the Vice-Chancellor Susanta Datta Gupta's office where they spent close to two hours and then taken to another building for discussion.

It was not immediately known what transpired at the discussion. After the discussion, the girl and her father were taken to Bolpur railway station in a university car from where they left for Kolkata by the Saraighat Express.

An official of Visva Bharati said, "In her letter to the university authority the girl, a second year student of Kala Bhavan who hailed from Sikkim, had alleged that she was sexually harassed by three students."

She also alleged that they have recorded some obscene pictures with their mobile phones and threatened to blackmail with those.

On Thursday, the father of the girl came to Santiniketan. He met the university authority and demanded immediate action against those students.

He said yesterday, "The boys misbehaved with my daughter and she was threatened that she would be blackmailed with with some pictures which they had taken with a mobile phone."

This morning the father took away his daughter from the hostel and said, "I shall take her to Kolkata for the time being and take the final decision after some days."