AISA expels Ratan, will stand by woman

READ | AISA leader spiked my drink, raped me: JNU student to police

He added, “AISA will be unflinching on the principles of gender justice even if it involves a leading member of the organisation. We stand by the complainant in her fight for justice.”

He also said the organisation “will reflect on and deal with this issue with all the firmness it deserves”.

Ratan could not be reached for comment. According to AISA, he had been expelled from the position of state president in December 2015 for allegedly misbehaving with other members.

Sources told The Indian Express that AISA had initiated an inquiry against Ratan for allegedly using foul language and misbehaving with both men and women activists. “The incidents were taken note of. Following the inquiry, he was expelled from the position of state president,” said the sources.

Ratan is a PhD student at the Centre for the Study of Discrimination and Exclusion. Prior to joining JNU in July 2014, Anmol was a leading AISA activist in Delhi University. He graduated from Satyawati College and did both his post-graduation and MPhil in Political Science.

Ratan was elected the state president during AISA’s state conference held at the beginning of 2015, but expelled later on following the allegations against him. Official releases of AISA had also stopped carrying his name.

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Taken aback by the allegations, JNU students and teachers took to social media to voice their concerns. “A very serious complaint has been registered by a woman student with police. This is the time for us as a campus community to show everyone what JNU’s progressive culture truly is: an empathetic understanding of the traumatic nature of sexual violence, of the courage it takes to make a complaint, a respect for the dignity of all women and an unqualified support for substantive justice in all such complaints,” said Professor Ayesha Kidwai in a Facebook post.

JNU’s Gender Sensitisation Committee against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH) representative Aishwarya Adhikari said they were yet to receive any complaint against Ratan.