Students of the Chandigarh University staged a midnight protest on Saturday night after reports of private videos of some women inmates of the hostel being uploaded on a social website platform went viral. The Punjab Government has ordered a high-level inquiry into the incident and one woman, a student of MBA part one has been taken into custody for her role in forwarding the videos to a man in Shimla. The University authorities and the State government have got into a damage control exercise and while denying that any girl had attempted suicide, assured of strict action against the guilty persons. What needs to be probed is that if the reports that are circulating are to believed, how was it possible to film these videos inside the hostel? Obviously, there was scope for such a mischief to happen and why did the administration of the university and the hostel not take pre-emptive action. It is difficult to believe that the affected women would circulate their own videos even amongst friends. Therefore, whoever is responsible for this must be having some sort of access to either the private videos or knew how to record these MMS surreptitiously and without the knowledge of women who were being filmed. There has to be a larger angle to this scandal as well. Was the intention of circulating these videos driven by allurement of big money from Pornographic websites, which could have then used the material to blackmail the affected women and compromise them into succumbing to demands of acting in blue films. As a minister of the Punjab government has rightly commented that the matter was about the dignity and pride of the State’s daughters and therefore it cannot be brushed aside. It is not the first time when such a scandal has hit an educational institution. Many years ago, a MMS featuring a young schoolgirl of Delhi in intimate position with her classmate had gone viral. It was evident that the MMS was leaked by the boy but it was the girl who suffered the maximum brunt of the issue. Her parents were forced to withdraw her from the school and as per reports, she was re-located in another country. The Chandigarh University matter is also equally serious and has sparked anger and indignation everywhere. The larger point is that educational institutions have to ensure that the interests of no student are ever harmed. The woman who has been arrested must be thoroughly interrogated. The University administration is claiming that only one video has been recovered from her and that features her. The issue is that the cell phones of students should be confiscated and given to the cyber-crime cell, so that they can gather forensic evidence if it was required to strengthen the case. The Centre must also intervene and ask University administrations all over the country to take pre-cautions to prevent recurrence of such incidents. Hostels have to be properly monitored. It is not only for preventing MMS videos which intrude privacy but for ensuring that other illegal things such as drugs and substance abuse does not take place there. The Chandigarh University episode should serve as an eye opener for one and all.
Pankaj Vohra