As a Special Investigations Team looks into the allegations made by a student of the Swami Shukdevanand Law College (SSLC), her peers alleged that they are being forcibly kept away from the team.
Speaking to THE WEEK, a student of the law faculty, a junior of the woman who had gone missing on August 23 after levelling charges against Swami Chinmayanand said, “There are some students who if quizzed by the team can answer vital questions. But they have been discouraged from coming to the college,” he said. The SIT team was on the college premises on Saturday to conduct investigations in the probe that is being monitored by the Supreme Court.
Chinmayanand was appointed Minister of State (Home) in the BJP government in 2003. He is the chairman of SSLC, Shahjahanpur and four other institutes, run from the premises of the Mumukshu Ashram that he heads. The young woman, a first-year student of the post graduate law course had gone missing after posting a video in which she accused a ‘sanyasi’ of destroying her life. Her father had subsequently lodged an FIR against Chinmayanand.
Another student leader from the college told THE WEEK that he was asked by the principal of the college to lie low till the investigations were on. “If there is a matter within the family, it should be sorted privately. We must not speak out about these issues” is what this student was allegedly told by SSLC principal, Sanjay Kumar Baranwal.
Baranwal had not responded to queries from THE WEEK at the time of the filing of this report.
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Students also alleged that security guards who had been working for over a decade in the ashram have been removed and a private security agency deployed. “The security guards knew everything. We hear they have been told that they will be asked to come back once the investigations are over," a student of SSLC said.
Avinesh Kumar Mishra, the Honorary Secretary of SSLC said the management was providing all possible assistance to the probe team. “The team only wanted to meet such students who had been classmates of Miss A (the name given by the Supreme Court to the survivor). It was at full liberty and went to the classrooms to make inquiries. We have been providing all assistance to the local police, administration and the special team," Mishra said.
Mishra also denied the change of the security guards. “Only one guard was shifted elsewhere on the campus. There is no question of trying to hide anything," he told THE WEEK.
