India: Protest erupts at private university over leak of objectionable videos of girl students

Students at Chandigarh University in the Punjab state of India are lodging a protest on the campus since Saturday nightafter objectionable videos of several girl students allegedly went viral on social media platforms.

According to sources, a girl student allegedly leaked private videos of her hostel mates to a friend who leaked them online.After the news of the incident spread across the campus, the students came out in protest and demanded a probe into the incident.

According to the police, the accused is a first-year MBA student at the university who has been arrested after being booked under Sections 354C of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and relevant sections of the IT Act.

After the controversy snowballed, several rumours started doing the rounds with a few media channels reporting that victims had attempted suicide en masse on the campus. The police, however, cleared that no one had committed suicide.

On the viral video of a student being carried towards an ambulance, police said one student suffered from an anxiety attack.

Meanwhile, the college authorities refuted all the allegations and stated that no objectionable video has been released online.

"The rumor which is circulating through media that 60 objectionable MMS have been found of students...is totally false and baseless. During the preliminary investigation conducted by the university, there have been no videos found of any student which are objectionable except a personal video shot by a girl which was shared by herself to her boyfriend." said RS Bawa, pro-chancellor, Chandigarh University in a statement.

Similarly, Mohali SSP Vivek Soni informed the media that they had also recovered only one video.

“So far in our investigation, we have found out that there is only one video of the accused herself. She has not recorded any other video of anyone else. Even the [accused] student did not say to herself that she made someone else’s video. Electronic devices and mobile phones have been taken into custody and will be sent for forensic examination today itself.” SSP Soni told the reporters.

A video of the hostel warden reprimanding the accused student for sending the 'objectionale videos' to her friend has also gone viral on social media platforms. The police, however, so far, have not validated the authenticity of the video.

(With inputs from agencies)

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