Stephen's molestation row worse than Dadri lynching: Valson Thampu

New Delhi: St Stephen's college's principal Valson Thampu on Sunday said that the molestation row of a research scholar, which rocked the college for over three months, was "worse" than the Dadri lynching case.

Thampu also said that the girl has now been forgotten as "useless rags" and dumped in the pits as an "abused specimen of humanity".

Maintaining that now the "sheep-skins have fallen off" and the "wolves have emerged in their true colours", Thampu urged the girl to meet him so that he could help her out in completing her PhD.

"How is this episode, may I make bold to ask, any better than the lynching of Mohammad Aklaq? If anything, it is worse, much worse. The lynching was done by a frenzied mob of some 200 misguided, perhaps illiterate, nit-wits- victims of false propaganda and communal incitement.

"The smart guys who 'lynched' this vulnerable, unsuspecting girl, in a state of desperation was by highly- educated vandals," he said in a Facebook post.

Thampu, who was accused of shielding the accused professor in the case, had been maintaining that the girl was being "mentored" by a few persons who had vested interests, which were used against him.

Reiterating the same, he further said, "For days, she was coached and tutored. She was serenaded from channel to channel. Suggestively masked and subtly revealed.

"She filled the media space and was made to serve as the peg on which the masks of some people's fleeting moral indignation could hang," he said.

"Now she is forgotten! I knew it was going to happen. But I did not know it would happen so soon," Thampu said.

"She has been put aside and forgotten like useless rags. She is no longer of any use to her erstwhile handlers. They have become wiser and come to the conclusion that it is better for them to "sit it out" for the rest of my tenure. The "Bramhastra" has failed," he said.

"She has now been dumped in the pits as an abused specimen of humanity, we must stand by her and enable her to pick up the broken threads of her violated aspirations," he added.

The girl had approached police in July, alleging that she was molested by Satish Kumar, an assistant professor in the college's Chemistry Department.

She had also accused college principal, Valson Thampu of "shielding" the teacher when the matter was reported to him.

The girl had also made a set of recordings public, which she claimed to have made during her meetings with the principal over the issue. Later, she withdrew her complaint from the college's Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) claiming that she had lost faith in its proceedings.

"I invite her affectionately and prayerfully to meet me, if there is a particle of faith and trust left in her after the atrocity she has suffered at the hands of her handlers (and one of them a teacher!)," Thampur said.

"All is not lost. We have a sense of responsibility. We shall not run away from it, in spite of the thunder and the predators, who roam around wearing messianic masks," he said.

Thampu was also summoned by the National Commission for Women (NCW) and Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) in connection with the case.

The ICC, probing the matter, is yet to come up with its report which has also been sought by the UGC and HRD ministry.