New Delhi, March 30 (Inditop.com) The Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) has seen three sexual harassment cases over the past two weeks, including last week’s incident in which a student harassed a professor with “intimidating” and romantic text messages, which ultimately led to his arrest, an official said Tuesday.
Simi Malhotra, spokesperson of the university told IANS: “Over the past two weeks, we have had three cases of sexual harassment. This case is just one of them. The university on its part has taken strict action in all the cases, expelling the student in the latest one.”
A PhD student of the varsity was Thursday arrested after a lady professor lodged a complaint with the police that he was harassing her with long, romantic text messages for over two months. The messages, she said, were “intimidating”.
While the student was later released on bail, the professor again approached the police Monday, saying he had once again started troubling her by landing outside her department with a bouquet of flowers. He was then arrested.
“The professor approached the police as also spoke to the university officials about the issue. While the police took action, the university on its part expelled the student and has issued a proctorial enquiry into the matter,” Malhotra said.
In a recently held seminar on sexual harassment on university campuses, professors of the varsity admitted that although Jamia has a committee to look into sexual harassment cases, they were struggling with bringing out of a policy on the same.
Its counterparts here, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Delhi University (DU), however, have a concrete policy framework on sexual harassment on their campuses.
Malhotra, however, said the varsity was doing its best to deal with such issues.
“In all the cases, the university has issued a proctorial enquiry and taken strict disciplinary action against the erring person. By expelling the student in the latest case, we want to set an example that we have zero tolerance against sexual harassment,” she said.
