Along with students, activists and former faculty members have also come forward in support of the ongoing protests at The English Foreign Language University (EFLU) against a sexual harassment case on the campus and the administration’s apathy towards students.
Today, Monday, November 6, the students at EFLU launched a hunger strike while continuing their protest against sexual harassment, voicing their concerns about how unsafe they feel on campus. The protest was joined by the students of Hyderabad Central University (HCU) and Osmania University as well. Along with this, activists and former faculty members of the institute also lent their support to the protestors.
Padmaja Shaw, retired Professor from Osmania University and a former faculty member of EFLU, who was present at the protest site on Monday, told EdexLive, “What we see here is shocking. A girl student has been assaulted. The campus is full of CCTV cameras for surveillance of the students but they cannot catch the culprits? They are calling the culprits unidentified individuals. But they are systematically harassing the students who are protesting about the issue, they have filed a series of FIRs and it is totally condemnable the way the university is handling this.”
Several protestors were detained by the police on Monday, November 6, during the ongoing protest on campus. Addressing this, Prof Shaw added that the university should focus on bringing justice to the sexual assault victim instead of harassing the protestors.
“Arresting students and harassing them is a diversionary tactic. Now, this is becoming a story about student unrest and not about an unsafe campus. The uproar began because the campus was unsafe and a female student was assaulted. That is why the students are protesting, not the other way around,” she added.
V Sandhya, National Convenor, Progressive Organisation for Women (POW), also extended her support to the protestors condemning the FIRs filed against the protesting students.
“This is an unfortunate issue, the students want this committee to be constituted without which, there will be no justice for girl students. But instead of constituting this committee, they have attacked a girl who raised her voice. Secondly, from that day onwards they want to hush up the students and suppress everything. They are playing gimmicks and it is shameful on the part of EFLU VC and other authorities. We condemn this barbaric and undemocratic attitude of EFLU authorities and we demand that all FIRs and show cause notices issued to the students by the university be taken back,” she added.
Meanwhile, the students of EFLU are continuing their protest demanding an immediate response from the proctorial board regarding justice for a student who was sexually assaulted on their campus on October 18 and their safety on campus.