We, the undersigned faculty members of JNU, express deep shock and dismay at the news that a complaint of rape has been lodged against a JNU student Anmol Ratan (an activist of a left students organisation but since then expelled from it), by another student of JNU. We express our support and solidarity for the complainant and request the JNU community, the administration, and the GSCASH to ensure that the due process of law is allowed to proceed without any hindrance.

It is of primary importance that the health and safety of the complainant be at the centre of all that the university community and the JNU administration does. This necessitates swift action to ensure that the accused (or those acting on his behalf) do not have any opportunity to intimidate, slander, or harm the complainant or the complainant’s witnesses, tamper with evidence or testimony, or otherwise create a campus environment that indulges in victim blaming or casting aspersions on the motives of the complainant.

We are therefore extremely dismayed to know that more than 48 hours after the complaint has been lodged, the accused has yet to be suspended or declared out of bounds from the university, so that safe conditions of complaint and testimony for the complainant may be maintained. We demand that this be done forthwith. This failure to act has tarnished the image of the JNU administration quite severely.

We also recognize the manner in which over the decades, teachers and students have made JNU a space in which women generally feel safe, and also empowered to report cases of sexual violence when these occur. This atmosphere however, has been caricatured in the recent past by sections of the media and by right-wing individuals as one of irresponsible sexual license, which the JNU administration has done nothing to counter.

We are dismayed also by the instrumental use of this case by some organizations on campus to further their political ambitions.

The JNU administration must undertake to cover all medical and legal costs of the complainant. It must fully cooperate with the investigation. So must all other members of the JNU community, as they are likely to have information relevant to the case and conduct of the accused.

As JNU faculty, we reiterate our commitment to building a campus that is safe, democratic, secular and mindful of the dignity of all sections of our community.

 Signed:

Mohan Rao

Rohit

Ayesha Kidwai

Nivedita Menon

Madhu Sahni

Ranjani Mazumdar

V Sujatha

Ritoo Jerath

Supriya Varma

Lata Singh

Shambhavi Prakash

Rajarshi Dasgupta

Ameet Parameswaran

Vikas Bajpai

C.P. Chandrasekhar

Rajat Datta

Parnal Chirmuley

Mohinder Singh

Veena Hariharan

Mallarika Sinha Roy

Jayati Ghosh

Pratiksha Baxi
Navaneetha Mokkil

Janaki Nair

Kumkum Roy

Brahm Prakash

Pradeep Shinde

Sharad

Burton Cleetus

Bishnupriya Paul

Shikha Jhingan

Kamal Mitra Chenoy

Rajan Kumar

Amitabh Singh

B.K.Choudhary

Ajay Kumar Kamati

Brinda Bose

Vikas Rawal

Sucharita Sen

Papori Bora

Chitra Harshvardhan

Vinay Kumar Ambedkar

Sima Baidya

Shiva Prakash

Shukla Sawant

Ravi Srivastava

Surajit Das

Surinder Jodhka

Kaustav Banerjee

Ira Bhaskar

Tiplut Nongbri

Rajesh Paswan

Ganga Sahay Meena

Sachidanand Sinha

Pradipta Bandyopadhyay

Tanweer Fazal

P.Bilimale

Garima Dalal

Saradindu Bhaduri

Sucheta Mahajan

Archana Prasad

Sudhir Kumar

Nilika Mehrotra

Joy L.K. Pachuau

Neera Kongari

Mollica Dastider

Deepak K Mishra

Biswajit Dhar

Padmini Pani

Dhruv Raina

Niraja Gopal Jayal

Moushumi Basu

GJV Prasad

Saumen Chattopadhyay

Sabaree Mitra

R. Ramaswamy

Debashis Ghoshal

Renuka Singh

Rosina Nasir

Udaya Kumar

Indrani Mukherjee