St Stephen's Molestation Row: Principal Says it Wasn't for Him to Approach the Police

New Delhi: Amid allegations of attempts to hush up a molestation row in St Stephen's College, its principal Valson Thampu has said it was not for him but the victim to go to police.

He further claimed that "the girl wasn't sure she wanted to treat it as a sexual harassment complaint".

"It wasn't for me but for the victim to approach the police over the issue. I could have raised it with the college's Internal Complaints Committee (ICC), which I duly did," he said, responding to queries why the matter wasn't reported to police when he first got the complaint.

"Life is not above law. The girl wasn't sure she wanted to treat it as a sexual harassment complaint. If I would have reported it to police, it would have been breach of trust," he added.

About the audio recordings submitted to police by the complainant claiming that the principal had put pressure on her to not treat the matter as that of sexual harassment, Mr Thampu said they have been "mischievously edited".

"I shall make no comments on the merit of the contents and how cleverly they have been manipulated, insofar as a police investigation into the case is in progress but they have being mischievously edited," he said.

The research scholar had approached police on June 19 alleging that she was molested by Satish Kumar, an assistant professor of Chemistry Department, and that Mr Thampu had tried to shield the accused when the matter was reported to him.

Though the High Court has ordered a stay on Mr Kumar's arrest till August 17, the demands for Mr Thampu's resignation in wake of the allegations has been growing louder.

Women organisations came up in arms against Mr Thampu on Saturday for "mishandling" the issue.

"We demand immediate reassigning of the PhD supervisor and initiation of an external inquiry into the principal's role and institutional failure to address such cases," several women organisations, including All India Democratic Women's Association, Centre for Struggling Women, Saheli and All India Progressive Women Association, said in a joint statement.

Meanwhile, the HRD Ministry has asked UGC to ensure that the college's ICC completes the enquiry "expeditiously" and "impartially".