They flashed, groped us at Gargi fest: DU students

| | NEW DELHI
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They flashed, groped us at Gargi fest: DU students

Monday, 10 February 2020 | Staff Reporter | NEW DELHI

They flashed, groped us  at Gargi fest: DU students

Received no complaint, say police, Gargi principal

In a shocking incident, a number of students of Delhi University’s Gargi College alleged that a group of men barged into their campus and molested, manhandled and sexually assaulted them during the third day of their annual college fest.

A second year student of Political Science on condition of anonymity said the incident took place “around 6.30 pm on February 6. “I was groped thrice, somebody reached for inside my skirt and the problem was I couldn’t move out of it. I saw that a 30-35-year-old man began masturbating while looking at me, so I ran from there too,” she told IANS in a choked voice over the phone,

Following the incident, Rekha Sharma, chairperson of the National Commission for Woman (NCW) said she will send a team to the college on Monday to talk to the students. The team will take the matter with police also.

However, a senior police official said neither they have received any complaint nor any PCR call was made by the students or the college authorities regarding the incident. “College principal Promila Kumar also didn’t inform us about any such incident. If any complaint will come we will take action accordingly,” he said.

Contacted by IANS, the principal, however, said, “We had a huge security arrangement, including police, bouncers and even commandos, along with the teaching and non-teaching staff, on duty. No one came to us and reported any such incident. We were taking rounds in the crowd. It was very crowded. We were very vigilant but we couldn’t see anything of this sort. It is a serious incident and I will deliberate on it. Unfortunately nobody has reported it to me,” she said.

According to students of the college, the incident happened  when college annual festival ‘Reverie’ was underway. “There were restriction on outsiders to get inside the college premises during the festival but the event was open for boys studying in other Delhi University colleges. Outsiders may have entered the campus using passes given to students of other Delhi University colleges,” they alleged.

“A large crowd of men entered into campus after breaking the gate and started abusing girls. They were also passing lewd comments and touching students inappropriately,” said one of the students on the condition of anonymity.

“The field was so massively crowded that there was no space to move. Two of my friends, who were accompanying me, had held my hands so that I don’t get lost in the crowd as there is no cell reception on the field. Suddenly immense pressure came from behind and my hand got jerked off so I lost my friends for the next 10-15 minutes, and in those minutes, I was molested thrice,” she said.

Another student from the college said, “Around 3-3.30 pm, a large groups of men started pushing the doors and then entered the college. There were no police personnel or bouncers present at the gate from 3 pm to 4 pm when 300-400 people entered the college.

“The college grounds are small, with little place to move around, and that is when some of these men started groping, molesting and harassing us.”

The student also alleged that when she approached the college principal, she responded by saying that I should have not come to the fest if I felt so unsafe. Asked about the student’s allegation that she was not helped when she reported the matter, Kumar said, “This is a false allegation. One of the students did come to me, so I asked her to stay with me until the situation became normal, but she disappeared suddenly.”

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