New Delhi: Even as the Delhi Police is yet to zero in on a suspect in the molestation case inside the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus earlier this week, and the university administration yet to issue a formal statement to allay students' fears, the JNUSU and JNUTA have both called for the Internal Complaints Committee to be disbanded and sought the reinstatement of the GSCASH (Gender Sensitization Committee Against Sexual Harassment).
Reiterating their demands for the reinstatement of the GSCASH, the JNUSU took out a protest march to Vice-Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar's residence on Thursday night even as the teachers' association said that the ICC lacked appropriate representation — which was leading to a "skewed sense of male entitlement" within the campus.
Explaining that the GSCASH was an active body of elected representatives from all sections of the university community, the JNUTA alleged that the V-C had arbitrarily replaced this with the ICC (Internal Complaints Committee), where positions are filled with people directed nominated by the Vice-Chancellor. The teachers' body went on to say that the ICC had failed to instill the same level of security among residents of the campus that the GSCASH was able to create.
To make their point about the ineffectiveness of the ICC, the JNUTA went on to say that a recent circular on sexual harassment put out by the body had shown its bias against women by putting the onus of preventing sexual harassment on women. The National Commission for Women had also called out the misogyny of this circular, following which the ICC had taken it down.
Moreover, the teachers went on to say that incidents of violence and lapse in security have been going on for two years now and also pointed to another incident of violence against a female student a few days within the molestation case. They said that a male student had assaulted the female student when she refused his advances.
Both the teachers and the students have repeatedly sought that the security agency Cyclops be held accountable for the lapses — starting from the one in January 2020 — when masked goons entered the campus and brutally beat up students and teachers before vandalising campus property and hostel rooms.
The varsity had recently renewed their contract with the agency, which was strongly opposed by the teachers' body as well.