In Himachal’s Dharamshala, govt college professor, 3 female students accused of sexual harassment and ragging after 19-year-old dies | Chandigarh News

Kullu: A professor and three female students of Govt College, Dharamshala, have been named in an FIR after the mysterious death of a 19-year-old girl student, who accused them of sexual harassment and ragging.The woman, who was a native of Dharamshala, died in a Ludhiana hospital on Dec 26, said Kangra SP Ashok Ratan, adding that the cause of death is being investigated.

In what’s said to be her last video — recorded in a Pathankot hospital before she was hospitalised in Ludhiana — she says: “Sir would go after me.” A woman is heard asking her repeatedly if the professor touched her inappropriately, and she nods and says ‘yes’.The video surfaced on social media on Thursday evening. The woman seems to be in distress and finding it hard to talk.Acting on a complaint filed by her father, Dharamshala police registered a case against the professor and three students under BNS sections 75 (sexual harassment), 115(2) (causing hurt), and 3(5) (common intention) and section 3 of Himachal Pradesh Educational Institution (Prohibition of) Ragging Act 2009 on Thursday. The three women were classmates of the victims, and now in second year, while she failed her first year exams.The father alleges that harassment by the professor and other accused pushed his daughter into depression. According to the complaint, on Sept 18 last year, the three female students harassed her and beat her during a ragging session. One of them allegedly hit her with a bottle and cut her hair.“This incident troubled and scared her a lot. She kept saying that she did not want to go to the college as the students would kill her,” her father says in the complaint, adding that he enrolled her in a private computer academy on her insistence on Sept 20. “But her condition kept deteriorating, and I took her to a doctor in Dharamshala. I changed many hospitals during the course of her treatment,” he says in the complaint.The girl was treated at various hospitals in Himachal and Punjab, and at the time of her death she was admitted to Dayanand Medical College (DMC) and Hospital, Ludhiana.“The victim was treated at seven hospitals. We are obtaining the treatment records to find out the exact cause of death. Many allegations were levelled, and we are verifying all the facts. A thorough inquiry will be conducted in this case,” the SP said.There were allegations from some quarters that she was harassed because she was a Dalit. It’s not so, said SP Ratan. “The police case is based on the complaint filed by the victim’s father. Nowhere in the complaint does he say she was allegedly ragged or harassed because of the community she belonged to,” said the SP.According to police, the girl’s family filed a complaint on Dec 20 as well. “It was filed on the CM’s Helpline, and we recorded statements of the accused professor and students. When a police team visited the complainant’s house, we were told that she was hospitalised in Ludhiana and could not record her statement,” said Kangra ASP Bir Bahadur.According to Dharamshala College principal Rakesh Pathania, no complaint of sexual harassment or ragging was filed with the college administration. “She was a first-year student but stopped attending classes after July 29. I think she felt disturbed as she failed to clear her BA first-year examinations. She met the professor, who has been accused in the FIR, several times with the request that she ‘wanted to be in the second year’. But she was told that she would have to take admission in first year again. She never did that.”“We have a strict policy on ragging and an anti-ragging committee. If such an incident happened, students would talk, inform each other and file a complaint. But the victim never filed any complaint of sexual harassment or ragging,” said Pathania.