Accused of molestation, Jadavpur University student goes ‘missing’

On January 15, the student had posted on social media that she was sexually harassed by a member of the Radical student group while participating in a “feminist militant protest” earlier in the day. The protest was held under the joint banner of the students groups the United Student’s Democratic Front (USDF) and Radical.

After the elections to the JU students union on January 25, the USDF accused Mandi for the incident and publicly shamed him. According to his family members and friends, Mandi disappeared on February 2, leaving behind most of his belongings, including his phone.

The next day, Sushil’s family filed an FIR against the girl and four members of USDF – Soumya Mondal, Dibyakamal Mitra, Koustav Mondal, Nabottoma Pal – under sections pertaining to defamation, abducion and SC and ST (prevention of atrocities) Act.

The caste aspect received particular attention.

On Friday, students under the banner of ‘Friends of Sushil’, that included associations of tribals and minorities, took out a rally from the university till Golpark in south Kolkata. With banners imploring Sushil Mandi to return, the students invoked “We don’t want another Rohit Vemula”, referring to the Hyderabad University student who committed suicide last year. That incident had sparked a nationwide debate on how Dalits were treated in educational institutions.

Dhiraj Sengupta of the Association For Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) too wrote to the Joint CP (Crime) demanding action in the case.

“Till today, we found no advertisement in newspapers or in audio-visual media about missing Sushil Mandi. This appears to us as inadvertence on the part of Kolkata Police in this case. Is it because Sushil hails from a destitute low caste family?” he said.

The student groups, the USDF and Radical, meanwhile, have been at loggerheads ever since the accusations started against Mandi.

“We don’t have any complaints against the girl. She didn’t name anyone. Instead, it was the USDF who had named him and publicly shamed him. Our demand is that Sushil be brought back with due respect,” said Nilim Bose, Radical. The outfit too beliefs Mandi was targetted due to his “tribal background”.

Kaustav Mondal of the USDF said, “It is meaningless to bring caste issue into a molestation case. To file an FIR regarding this is basically to put pressure on us and try and shift the blame on the victim. We are willing to self critique about whether or not we should have named Sushil Mandi. But Radical demanded that we say we were wrong or that the girl says that the incident never took place. That is not acceptable.”

The issue has exposed the faultlines between other Leftist organisations.

“There is caste discrimination in this case. He was publicly humiliated. This is the same way in which fascist forces have worked in the case of Najeeb Ahmad (who is missing from a Delhi university) or Rohit (Vemula) to attack minority communities. If the complaint was legitimate, why hasn’t she approached the authorities? Or is this a form of Brahiminical Leftism that can’t tolerate minorities in the public space,” said Osman Gani of the Students Islamic Organisation of India.

Meanwhile, the police maintained that they were yet to find any trace of Sushil.

“There are two theories – that he went underground and we have tasked police teams to find him. The second theory is that he’s dead. But we’re yet to recover a body,” said a police officer.

Mandi completed his engineering from JU in 2009. He returned to the university when for an MPhil with the linguistics department and has been closely associated with Left student politics for over a decade. He was a regular participant in various agitation programmes, including feminist campaigns.