Ten students from different government and private colleges in Delhi-NCR have been arrested for allegedly molesting students of Delhi University’s Gargi College after gatecrashing a fest in the all-girls campus last week, police said on Wednesday.
Atul Kumar Thakur, deputy commissioner of police (south district), said the arrested students are all aged between 18 and 25 years. “They had gathered outside gate number 2. They had pushed a caterer’s parked van against the gate to break it open. One of them then entered the broken gate to open it from inside,” the DCP said.
The officer said the suspects then went on to join the fest by jumping over barricades put up by private security guards in the campus. According to students of the college, the “drunk intruders” groped and dragged girls and performed obscene acts. “None of them had passes to attend the fest,” said the DCP.
DCP Thakur said footage from CCTV cameras installed at the gate as well as electronic surveillance helped identify and nab the suspects. The police are questioning private security guards and college staffers who were manning the entry gate.
“Our 11 teams are working to identify and nab all the people involved in the crime,” said the officer.
He said around 30 suspects had been identified in all and about 15 suspects had been questioned so far. “More arrests are likely in the near future,” he said.
The DCP said the suspects were arrested from Delhi and neighbouring cities. While a few of them belong to Delhi University, the others study in private and government universities in the NCR region. The police didn’t individually identify the arrested suspects or pin-point their colleges.
The officer said while a few of them knew each other, many others were around the college when they decided to barge in.
Another senior police officer, who didn’t want to be identified, said that so far there is nothing to suggest that the college authorities informed the local police about the fest.
While the alleged incident happened on February 6, the police registered a case only on Monday – after much outrage against the alleged sexual harassment. Students held a protest at the college premises, alleging inaction by the college authorities.
Delhi police had then said they did not get any complaint from the college or the students on the day of the incident. Police had said though they were not informed about the fest, they sent police personnel in plainclothes as a precautionary measure.
Students and teachers had posted about the incident on social media. According to their posts, groups of unruly, drunk men forced their way during the college festival. The students said they were groped, molested and assaulted by the outsiders.
