Students protest at BHU against reinstatement of professor accused of sexual misconduct
Varanasi: Scores of students of the Banaras Hindu University staged an overnight protest outside the campus gate after a professor accused of sexually harassing women students was reinstated and allowed to take classes.
The students have been protesting since Saturday evening, demanding that the professor be punished.
Professor S K Chaubey of the Zoology department was suspended in October last year on the charges of sexual misconduct levelled by some students of his department.
In June, the BHU executive council, the highest decision-making body of the varsity, revoked the suspension of Chaubey, however, it censured and restricted him for taking academic classes.
Chaubey returned to taking classes a few days ago, triggering protests, a student said.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
