A female student of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) was not just violated but gang-raped and the appropriate section for the same was added to the police report on Wednesday evening.
For the last week, protests by students have been ongoing at the campus.
On November 1, a female student, while walking with a friend had been molested and stripped on campus. Students had alleged that this was done by outsiders and have been demanding that entry to the campus be strictly controlled.
Last evening it emerged that the student, who is pursuing a BTech course at IIT-BHU, had also been gang-raped. This incident was filmed, and the miscreants had saved the woman's phone number. They had threatened to circulate the video.
On Wednesday evening, Section 376 (D) of the Indian Penal Code was added to the First Information Report which till now consisted of Sections 354 (B) and 509 of the IPC. While the first of these sections invites punishment of not less than 20 years; 354 (B)—use of criminal force to disrobe—invites a punishment of three to seven years and is also liable to a fine; while 509 deals with insult to the modesty of a woman, the punishment or which is a much lighter three-year simple imprisonment.
The incident has led to the institute considering putting up barricades around its portion of the campus to safeguard it better. That is another step that is being widely decried by the students.
On November 8, the survivor narrated her ordeal before a magistrate after which the additional section was added to the FIR. The entire act had been committed on gun point.
Shivkant Mishra, an inspector at the Lanka police station (under which the university falls), who is incharge of the case said, “We are hopeful of nabbing the miscreants very soon. There is no way for them to escape. We are working on very solid leads”.
On Wednesday, hundreds of BHU students had participated in a three kilometre rally, with many students barefoot and holding up posters of the university’s founder Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya. IIT-BHU students had refused to go to classes and instead studied at the spot of the incident.
