Students of the North Bengal University’s Department of Computer Science and Application on Wednesday organized a protest rally against a teacher of the department, who has been accused of misconduct and sexually harassing girl students.

However, the teacher in question, Dilip Roy Chowdhury, refuted the allegations and said that they were baseless. Around 300 students marched across the NBU campus shouting slogans and staged a demonstration before the administrative offices, demanding stern action against the teacher.

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“For the past few months, we have been complaining of the misconduct of the teacher and seeking justice for reasons including sexual harassment, lack of ethics, partiality, plagiarism, leakage of question papers and many more.

We have led three deputations to the Vice-Chancellor till now, but did not get any satisfactory answer,” said a student. “Based on our first complaint, an enquiry was held and few of our students were individually summoned for it.

The report of the enquiry was to be announced after seven to eight days, but nothing happened. We decided to hand over another memorandum, but no action was taken again. Hence we were forced to stage a protest.

We demand immediate steps taken against the teacher as soon as possible, or we will be forced to boycott all the classes,” added the students. However, Dr Roy ruled out the allegations and said, “They are baseless allegations.

They complained on 18 December last about the issue and an enquiry committee was formed. Nothing regarding molestation was discussed then, but on Wednesday this issue has been raised prior to a report of the enquiry committee. I acted as per instructions given by the university, and from 22 March, I was not allowed to enter the department.”

“The outgoing batch was caught using unfair means in the examination hall. The students did not like the way I appeared strict during the exams.

I have got all evidence against the use of unfair means by the students, but I am not allowed to enter the department,” Mr Roy claimed. Meanwhile, NBU registrar Dr Dilip Sarkar said the report has reached them and that it will be opened by the VC on Thursday.

“The reports of the enquiry committee constituted in December have reached us, but only the VC can open them. He will open the reports on Thursday. In the meantime, the teacher accused has been asked to go on compulsory leave until a decision is taken by the administration,” said Dr Sarkar.