‘Sexual harassment, caste-based discrimination’: ILS students, alumni raise serious allegations; college says baseless claims

“Graffiti with Islamophobic remarks was found outside the room of a Muslim student over a year ago,” one of the ILS student’s told the Indian Express, referring to two instances mentioned in the seven-page letter. “Despite authorities saying they will do something about it, no concrete action was taken and that only encourages miscreants.”

The letter also pointed at institutional casteism and stated that permission for organising a Phule Ambedkar memorial lecture has been denied for three consecutive years. Students have alleged favouritism among faculty, especially in appointments to bodies like the Moot Court Society or the Anti-Ragging Committee. The letter demands a codified ‘diversity and inclusion policy’ to ensure adequate representation of Scheduled Castes , Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, gender and religious minorities.

The letter also majorly brought up two cases of sexual harassment where adequate action has still not been taken. One of them is a case of stalking and molestation of a student by a classmate that occurred over a period of two years (2018-2020). After lodging a complaint with the college authorities and the consequent inaction, the student approached the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, which is when the case garnered some media attention in 2020.

An alumna of ILS said, “This creates an atmosphere of fear and hesitation, especially among women students because you realise the college is not going to do anything about it. In 2022, 15 students complained against a classmate for harassment but nothing was done yet again.”

Several women students that The Indian Express spoke with supported the claims of the letter regarding inappropriate personal comments on clothes of women in college by faculty.

Discipline in the college hostel was also raised as a concern with firecrackers being burned, items being thrown from the terrace and shouting and abusing being the norm at nights.

When asked for her response, the officiating principal Deepa Paturkar said the letter was “the doing of one student who has been a troublemaker and is trying to bring JNU culture in our college.” She said that she did not believe that the students who had signed it had even read it. She said, “I deny these baseless and false allegations made in this letter. If required I am ready to respond to any authority that might ask me to.”

Paturkar clarified that she was not aware of the Islamophobic graffiti. Paturkar called the sexual harassment allegations from 2021 completely false and said that it was “a case of cross complaining due to some personal matter”. “It was a notorious complaint and nothing was found in our investigation as I was the officiating head of the complaints committee,” she said.

In the second instance of 15 students complaining against a classmate, she said it was not 15 but eight who had taken back their complaint after the response of the accused.

Paturkar said that she had statistics and internal research to prove that there has been enough caste diversity at the institution and the Phule Ambedkar lecture was a matter of logistical reasons and other events were held for the same. “We have an official dress code and we do not humiliate any girl student. However, we do point out that this is a professional college, if we find anyone violating the dress code,” she added.

The Indian Express found that the internal complaints committee of ILS Law College does not meet all the UGC guidelines. No mention of student representatives is made on the website, despite the UGC mandate of two elected student representatives. When this was pointed out, Paturkar said that ILS did have a male student, like the previous year, as the appointed student representative. “Boys and men should also have adequate representation in the committee and we are not violating the women’s representation clause by appointing a male student,” she said.