Students stage a protest after a female student was allegedly molested and stripped near her hostel at Banaras Hindu University, in Varanasi, Friday, Nov. 3, 2023.
Credit: PTI Photo
Varanasi: Even as the police are yet to arrest the accused who allegedly molested a female student on the IIT-BHU campus, students have claimed that another female student faced a similar ordeal two days before the latest incident.
Pranav Suresh, vice-president of IIT-BHU Students' Parliament, a students' group of the institute, in a video statement said, "While the current incident occurred on Wednesday night, another female student was molested by three men who touched her inappropriately and fled from the spot on Monday night. She lodged a complaint regarding the matter with the proctorial board."
Suresh claimed that such incidents have become common on the campus and are committed by outsiders who easily enter the campus.
IIT-BHU Proctor Sunil Mohan, while stating that proper action is taken on every complaint raised by students, declined to speak about Monday's incident.
The police, however, said they had no information about this incident.
Bhelupur Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Praveen Kumar Singh said, "The university administration has not informed us about any such incident."
Meanwhile, the university has made stringent security arrangements to prevent entry of outsiders inside the campus. According to the officials, no outsiders are allowed inside the campus without prior appointment of designated work.
Apart from the university guards, police constables have also been deployed at the entry gates of the institute. At Least a dozen police constables with a sub-inspector have been deployed to ensure security on the campus, police officials said.
Hundreds of BHU students held a protest on Thursday over the alleged molestation of a female student on campus on Wednesday night. According to the complainant, she had gone out of her hostel with a friend when three men on a motorbike forcibly took her to a corner and gagged her after separating her from her friend near the Karman Baba temple.
The accused then allegedly stripped the woman, took her pictures and recorded a video of the act. They let her go after about 15 minutes and took her phone number, the complaint stated.
Based on the woman's complaint, an FIR has been registered under Section 354 (assault or criminal force to a woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the Information Technology Act at the Lanka police station here, police said.