Inquiry Committee set up after BHU prof forces two SC/ST PhD scholars to clean toilet

An inquiry committee formed recently by the Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) has begun its probe into a complaint filed by two research scholars from the institute accusing a professor of forcing them to clean toilets and of passing casteist remarks against them.

According to several reports, among the two students, one belonged to a Scheduled Caste (SC) and the other to a Scheduled Tribe (ST) and they are said to be from the Mahila Maha Vidyalaya (MMV) affiliated to the BHU. The alleged incident took place in March this year during a seminar at the institute. The professor who has been accused by the students belongs to the Home Science department of the college. 

BHU's VC Rakesh Bhatnagar set up the panel on the directive of National Commission for Scheduled Tribes. "A professor of the Home Science department made two PhD scholars from SC and ST clean the toilet in the department. A conference was going on in the department then," a senior faculty member, who wanted to remain anonymous said.

The faculty member also told the Indian Express that the students were "scared of the professor" and thus at first did not complain, but apparently a non-teaching staff of the same college sent the complaint to the Commission.

According to MMV Principal Chandrakala Tripathi, no complaint was directly sent to her. "A non-teaching staff member complained about it and the inquiry committee was set up. The committee is headed by our Political Science assistant professor and has around 5-6 members," said the principal.

The BHU Vice-Chancellor was not reachable to get a comment on the matter.