Chandigarh University Row: Students Allege Authorities 'Suppressing Facts'. 2 Arrested, 1 Detained — Updates

Chandigarh University Row: While police claimed that the accused girl shot her own video, many students accused the authorities of "suppressing facts" related to the alleged objectionable videos.

Mohali: Police personnel deployed outside Chandigarh University | Students protest over alleged objectionable videos on Sunday.

Source : PTI

New Delhi: Chandigarh University in Punjab's Mohali continued to witness protests on Sunday after the allegations pertaining to objectionable videos of several women students surfaced and led to an uproar. Protests rocked the campus Saturday night over allegations that objectionable videos of several women students were recorded by a fellow hosteller and sent to a man in Shimla and thereafter leaked online.

As protests continued till late Sunday night, senior officials from the district administration, police, and university tried to pacify the students.

Citing the preliminary investigation, the police said that the accused female student shot her own video and no videos of other girls were found.

However, many students accused the university authorities of  "suppressing facts" related to the alleged videos and "suicide attempt" by a student, a claim denied by the police as well as the university.

The protesters, most of them dressed in black clothes, chanted "we want justice" in the presence of police. They raised slogans against the police as well.

Chandigarh University Row — Updates

•  Mohali Police arrested a woman student and a 23-year-old youth, stated to be her boyfriend, was held in Himachal Pradesh and handed over to the Punjab Police. The Himachal Police also detained another 31-year-old man in connection with the case, news agency PTI reported.
  
  
• Punjab's Additional Director General of Police, Gurpreet Deo, reached the Chandigarh University campus to take stock of the situation after the Saturday night protests. He told reporters that the woman student appeared to have shared a video of herself with the youth and no objectionable video of any other student was found.  
     
• Chandigarh University authorities also rejected claims of objectionable videos as "false and baseless". It also dismissed the reports that claimed videos of several women students in the varsity hostel were leaked on social media and that distraught students had attempted suicide.
  
  
• Earlier, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said that a high-level inquiry has been ordered and appealed to all to avoid "rumours". " A high-level inquiry has been ordered into the incident. Whoever is guilty will face strict action... I am in constant touch with the administration... I appeal to all of you to avoid rumours...," he wrote in a tweet in Hindi.
  
  
• Expressing concern about the incident, Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal took to Twitter on Sunday and said that those involved in posting "objectionable" videos of female students at a Punjab university on social media will face the strictest punishment. "In Chandigarh University, a girl recorded objectionable videos of other girl students. This matter is very serious and shameful. All the culprits involved in this will get the harshest punishment," he wrote on Twitter.
  
  
• According to PTI, tension prevailed on the campus as protesting students questioned the university and police officials, asking: "if nothing had happened on the campus", why the university on Sunday evening declared September 19 and 20 as "non-teaching days", thus a holiday for students.
  
  
• Students demanded that the statements of those female students whose videos allegedly got leaked, be recorded before representatives of students.
  
  
• A student claimed that videos were made, they were later deleted and the accused student's phone was also broken.
  
  
• Mohali's SSP Vivek Sheel Soni faced the ire of agitated students as he termed the allegations of objectionable videos as "rumours". Students demanded an apology from the police and district administration as they claimed that the accused woman had admitted she had made the videos. 
  
  
• PTI reported another student as claiming that more than 10 girl students suffered panic attacks Saturday evening fearing that MMS videos of "50-60 girls had" been leaked by the arrested student to her boyfriend over the phone.

Meanwhile, the university authorities has sought a list of their demands to end the stalemate. There was heavy deployment of police on the campus.

In a statement, the National Commission for Women (NCW) said that its chairperson Rekha Sharma has written to the Director General of Police of Punjab to deal with the matter strictly and without any laxity. The victims must be given proper counselling and their safety and security must be ensured, the NCW said.

Opposition leaders including Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, former chief minister Amarinder Singh, Shiromani Akali Dal leader and former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal and senior Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa demanded a free and fair probe and exemplary punishment for the guilty.

Harsimrat Badal also demanded that authorities make all facts public and not try to suppress anything.

(With Agency Inputs)