Cannot assign a guard to every student: BHU VC on girls' safety on campus

Varanasi: The Vice-Chancellor of the Banaras Hindu University, Chancellor Girish Chandra Tripathi, has been constantly refuting the allegations of female students that there are safety issues on the campus.

In the process of negating the allegations, he has also said that the protests that erupted on the campus on Friday, following the molestation of one female student, was “created by outsiders” with “vested interests” as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in the city, The Indian Express reported.

“This issue was created. I think this issue was created by outsiders and the shape it took is what is more unfortunate than the initial incident itself,” Tripathi said, adding that the victim was “used” for “political gains”.

He went on to claim that the girl was not molested, but she was eve-teased. The reports and versions of victim’s fellow students said that she was allegedly touched inappropriately by three bike-borne men. The incident happened near Kala Bhawan on the BHU campus on Thursday evening.

Speaking to the newspaper about the alleged incidents of molestation and eve-teasing on the campus, the VC said, “Incidents can happen and they do”.

“There are 10,000 girls living here on campus. We can ensure their safety in the hostel, that is why there are curfew timings. But there are no such timings on the road outside, incidents happen. But what is important is how we handle the incident. This is such a big campus, anything can happen anywhere. We cannot assign a guard to every student,” he added.

Ironically, later in the interview with the IE, Tripathi claimed that “no such incident (eve-teasing/molestation) has ever happened since I took over as the VC”.

Claiming that the BHU campus is safe, he said members of student bodies like AISA and SFI are the only ones who always feel unsafe.