In yet another alarming incident, an associate professor at St Xavier’s University in Kolkata was reportedly compelled to resign and asked to pay Rs 99 crores after a guardian of a student complained about her supposed ‘objectionable’ Instagram images. The former assistant professor, who did not wish to be identified, is a graduate of the respected institute.
According to the reports, the university administration called lecturer and forced her to leave after the parents of an undergraduate student filed a complaint. She went on to say that they felt her Instagram post was ‘objectionable’.
According to the professor, she was obliged to testify before a committee that included the university’s registrar and the vice-chancellor, Fr Felix Raj. The professor stated that the complaint letter by guardian B.K. Mukherjee was read aloud to her at the meeting, and she was forced to quit. “It was an interrogation chamber where one woman read out a complaint from a student’s father regarding my social media post”, she said adding that she tendered the apology, but was forced to quit nevertheless.
The complaint letter stated, “I was shocked to find my son looking at images of Prof. in which she had posed in a sexually explicit manner, creating purposeful public exposure. Looking at a teacher clothed in her underwear and posting images on social media makes me feel ashamed as a parent because I have tried to protect my kid from such extreme indecency and exploitation of the female form. It is filthy, vulgar, and inappropriate for an 18-year-old student to watch his professor dressed scantily and exposing her body on a public stage.”
After the letter was read out, the woman was asked to explain how students could obtain those photographs. When she said it was impossible for the said student to access Instagram Stories posted in June, her statement was refuted as mere speculation. “One of the members of the committee reminded me that as a professor of an esteemed institution I was supposed to appear appropriately before the society, and it was objectionable to put up such posts which might corrupt the minds of young men”, she said.
The lady also added that she was slut shamed, taunted and harassed by the University members. “What happened in the meeting can only be described as a kangaroo court, where my client was intimidated, bullied and taunted with sexually coloured remarks and objectionable insinuations without any provocation or justification. Each member had some comment or the other including asking her – if her parents were comfortable with her ‘nude’ photographs,” the woman’s lawyer stated.
The professor, who has a PhD from two European universities indicated in a police report filed at Purba Jadavpur police station on October 24, 2021, that her private Instagram account had been hacked, resulting in the release and spread of her images. After that, she sent a legal notice to the university asking for a copy of the complaint of the guardian, along with documents regarding the committee meeting. She went on to claim that the way the institution handled her departure constituted sexual harassment and intentional character assassination. The university has, however, refuted all the allegations and said that the assistant professor resigned voluntarily. The lecturer stepped down in the final week of October 2021.
