‘Teacher used students for research on nudity’

AHMEDABAD - The prestigious National Institute of Design (NID) here is probing allegations that a teacher conducted experiments with nudity on students as part of an ongoing research.

The NID registrar Vijaya Deshmukh confirmed Thursday that an enquiry committee has been set up to look into the matter.

The allegations have been made in an e-mail attributed to Saurabh Kumar, who had passed out from the institute in December 2009.

The e-mail accused that a senior faculty member had carried out the experiments with nudity on students to enhance creativity with his batch (2007-2009), forcing students to undress before each other. Male and female students were told to undress separately.

According to the NID registrar, the faculty in question has denied the allegation orally but has been asked to put down his answer in writing.

Preliminary enquiries have failed to get any confirmation though efforts are afoot to reach out to students of the batch in question, she added.

The enquiry report is expected by July-end. The e-mail states that such activities were part of his research that sought to make out that undressing in public leads to instant creativity.

However, no prior consent was taken from students nor were they aware that they were subjects of his personal experiments.

“We were made to sign non-disclosure agreement (NDA). No part of the research was shown to us neither was the source revealed,” the e-mail said, adding that requests for transparency and informing the institute were shunned.

The female students collectively undressed in the girls hostel and the male students in the boys hostel. This was meant to lead to the next stage of getting creative where the female and the male students were supposed to undress together, the e-mail said.

“He also encouraged the openness to allow students of the opposite gender to touch and explore each other’s nude body without any hesitation. On finding the last activity absolutely unagreeable, some of the students protested and walked out of the class,” the e-mail stated while demanding an investigation.

According to the registrar, the institute had received the e-mail about a month back and though an enquiry is on, prima facie, there is no evidence so far to confirm the allegations.

“We are checking with the girls as well but so far there has been no confirmation of it,” she said.