Dear Sir,

This is a petition to seek for your intervention and help create a healthier work environment in academic institutions. Sexual Harassment in a workplace is a real problem and will continue to be so unless the guilty is most exemplarily punished.

IISER Kolkata happens to be one of the premier institutes of science and research in our country but has made it to the news mostly for the wrong reasons. Even right now, we are having to put up with one such incident, where the Principal Investigator of a lab has been accused to have sexually harassed his PhD student. The alleged person is Shree Prakash Pandey, who is a truly achieved researcher in his field, but is infamous for a long time because his testosterone surge is not a news anymore. Over the last 4 years, more than 50 students had to leave his research group because of alleged misconduct on part of Dr Pandey. Anyone who has spent a few days in this esteemed institute is aware of the fact that Dr Pandey is a sexual predator. Many of the victims have lodged complaints against Dr. Pandey to the Institute Director and other authorities but till now there is not a single step has been taken from the side of IISER- Kolkata administration.

In this particular incident, Dr Pandey has been accused to ask for sexual favours from his own PhD student by keeping her position in the lab at stake. On the night (beyond 11pm) of 4th of September,  Dr Pandey had called in his 3rd year PhD student in his laboratory, and had verbally, mentally and physically abused her.  He had asked her to dance, to strip of her clothes, and had forced her to kneel down in front of him for some time. He even made sexual advances like holding her by her wrist and pulling her close.She, however, refused the offer and refused to succumb to the pressure as well. She happens to be one of the many victims of Dr Pandey's outrageous sexual starvation, who has had the courage to come forward and lodge an official complaint against this man. What's unfortunate is that the administration has been really trying to cover up the act and seems least interested to deliver justice to the victim. The case is currently being pursued by the INTERNAL COMPLAINTS COMMITTEE (ICC), which is why no police complaint has been lodged till date. However, the ICC has taken a time of almost two months and is yet to come up with their report. Prof. Jayasri Das Sarma, who is a member of the Internal Complaints Committee and also a Principal Investigator of her own lab, had verbally asked the victim to silently resign from her post and look for a PhD position elsewhere because in her opinions, girls are expected to put up with this kind of situations. 

However the student body has strongly stood by the side of the victim and has managed to force the administration to take things more seriously at the moment. But we are still not convinced that any good is going to come out of this ICC who have, over this last 2 months, proved themselves to be an incompetent spineless authority. As a fellow Research Scholar of the victim, I would want her to pursue her PhD in this institute itself, and I would want Dr. Pandey to at least be sent out of the institute if not put behind bars. If he can get away with this, it would be a sad day for humanity . Some very famous dialogues that Dr Pandey has been known to preach inside and outside the lab are:

1. “I am the don of the institute”. 
2. “Until and unless I rape or murder anybody nobody has the rights to take away my job”. 
3. “In my lab, Jungle raj chalta hai. And who is the King, it’s me”.

There has to be a STRONG disciplinary action to stop his "Jungle Raj" in a National Institute.

The victim still awaits justice and all we can do is hope for the best. We would request you to, in your official capacity, do something that brings justice to the victim.

 

Thanking you,

the undersigned