Three Jamia students expelled for sexual harassment

NEW DELHI - Close on the heels of one of its PhD students being arrested for harassment of a woman professor with “intimidating”, romantic text messages, the Jamia Milia Islamia (JMI) university Tuesday said it has expelled three of its students in different cases of sexual harassment on campus.

“After receiving complaints and carrying out investigations, the proctorial department of the university recently found three students guilty of being involved in different cases of sexual harassment on campus,” a statement by the university said.

“Taking a serious view of this development, the university has expelled all three students from the university and a campus ban has also been imposed on them,” it added.

Earlier, an official spokesperson of the varsity had said that in the past two weeks there have been three cases of sexual harassment in the campus - with the case of the PhD student and the professor being one of them.

“Over the past two weeks, we have had three cases of sexual harassment. This case (the PhD student-professor case) is one of them. The university on its part has taken strict action in all the cases,” the spokesperson told IANS.

A PhD student of the varsity was Thursday arrested after a woman 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 and also spoke to the university officials about the issue. While police took action, the university on its part expelled the student and has issued a proctorial enquiry into the matter, the spokesperson added.

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.

The Jamia statement however said: As an institution, Jamia has zero tolerance for those elements that are found to indulge in any instance of sexual harassment on campus. In order to send a strong message to potential offenders, the university has taken exemplary and firm action against those who have been found to indulge in sexual harassment on campus in the last few days.