Campuses A Soft Target Now With Drunken Men Molesting Gargi College Students?

Mobs of men allegedly broke security and molested students at Delhi University’s all-women Gargi College during their annual fest ‘Reverie’, while police and college admin shrug off responsibility.

According to various media reports, students at Gargi College (an all-women Institute) in Delhi have raised serious allegations of molestation by outsiders who had barged in the college campus on Thursday during their annual fest ‘Reverie’ while the college security staff and police were caught napping as usual.

The students, enraged by the sheer lack of accountability displayed by the police and college administration (both of whom were apparently waiting for a complaint to be filed by the students before they could inconvenience themselves enough to lift a finger) have decided to stage protests in the college campus reiterating their demands of ‘Safe fest or no fest’ while also demanding the removal of the college principal. Political parties like the Congress have unequivocally condemned the action while Aam Aadmi Party is planning to raise this issue in parliament today.

Several other students and alumni of #GargiCollege told @TheQuint that there was serious lapse of security, multiple women were harassed, drunk men who did not have passes were allowed to enter #Reverie fest. pic.twitter.com/XeBpqK2Esg

— Mythreyee (@MythreyeeRamesh) February 8, 2020

Not that Delhi police is the most professional or accountable police force in the world, especially given their naked display of inaction on one hand and ineffable brutality on the other during the past few months. Some reports say that these alleged molesters belong to the right-wing, but that is yet to be confirmed.

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How the hell is it possible that these men were first allowed to break the gates and enter the campus, and then leave without being caught or at least identified by the police? How can these men be allowed to threaten women inside the campus so openly while being totally inebriated, and then get away with it when there are allegations that the Rapid Action Force (RAF), which was standing right across the street, did absolutely nothing? The college administration needs to be held accountable as well because it was under their watch that these girls were facing a life-threatening situation all on their own while a rabid pack of men were let loose on them.

Colleges are becoming soft targets

The fact that something like this can happen in a college right at the heart of the national capital is a serious cause for concern.

Over the past few weeks, our colleges have seen several cases of planned attacks wherein outsiders are allowed to barge into the campus without any permission, and put the lives of students in serious jeopardy.

Will this send across the right message to both the girl students aspiring to join these colleges (or for that matter any college across India) and their parents as well?

And what will you tell those parents if they decide not to send their girls to college in view of such serious concerns about their safety?

Why the hell are girls being treated as such easy targets by those vile men (considering what they have done, vile is an understatement) and why is there no outrage of any kind over an incident like this?

Are we so insensitive to the concerns of our fellow members of our society that we will just stand by and let this happen without so much as even raising our voice against this?

Sundaram Thakur, President of the students’ union, said that the students were given passes for the event to allow a fixed number of guests (male or female) at the event, and the entire process was being held under their supervision so that they do not have a heavy crowd that would be difficult to control. However, a group of around 200 men gathered at the college gates and actually broke it to enter the college. They then allegedly misbehaved with several women by groping them and masturbating in front of them while no help was in sight.

There are several accounts of students being chased inside the college by these a***oles with many girls lying around unconscious as a result of the vehemence of these attacks and a few of them even suffering from panic attacks. The thing is that the actual scale and extent of violence against these students has still not come to light because there is a possibility of some students not coming out in the open with their accounts for fear of retribution, so whatever we may be seeing on social media and news reports may not be the complete picture. If that is indeed true then I shudder to think of how grave the situation might actually turn out to be.

Will the Home Ministry do something or just sit on their haunches?

What happened at Gargi College a few days ago, or Jawaharlal Nehru University in January, or Ramjas College in 2017 are just a few of the several incidents where anti-social elements are being given a free rein to molest students, threaten them and destroy public property while the police stands by the wayside as a mute spectator, completely disregarding the fervent pleas of students to intervene and bring the situation under control. As in the case of other such incidents, the Delhi Police has not even registered an FIR till now, something that makes you question both their intent and professionalism.

The Law and order in the state of Delhi is under the direct jurisdiction of the Home Ministry of India and such repeated offenses on innocent college students is not something that the ministry can ignore for too long. They will have to be proactive and punish the culprits, or else they will be giving an unofficial green light to all such anti-social and anti-women elements in the society to basically do whatever they want.

Is this the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao that we had envisioned?

An incident like this should have been in the national headlines by now but sadly, not many news agencies have actively reported on this and as usual our government chooses to maintain a pin-drop silence on this issue. How the hell can we allow something like this to go unnoticed for so long? The news is filled with coverage of the Delhi Elections and Shaheen Bagh and while both these issues are important, it cannot give anyone an excuse to avoid an incident as serious as this.

I fail to understand as to why is it not making people boil with rage and take out series of protests to demand strict and uncompromising action against such ******* (I have run out if words and expletives to describe these molesting pigs) who have the gall of calling themselves human beings when in reality they are nothing more than a pack of ignorant, ill-mannered, nasty, wretched, disgusting, foul-mouthed, obnoxious, repugnant, reprobate, god-awful, monstrous and flagitious group of degenerates who deserve to be behind bars for what they have done. But will anyone take any action against them or will it be business as usual? I really don’t know but as always I live in the hope that the girls of Gargi College will get the justice that they so deserve because hope is all that we have now.

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