Dalit college student accuses dept head of casteist slur

Bhubaneswar: A 21-year-old student of Samanta Chandra Sekhar (SCS) Autonomous College, Puri on Saturday submitted a petition to the Chief Secretary of Odisha, the Principal Secretary of the Higher Education department and the Secretary of Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) department accusing caste based discrimination against his department head.

The victim Dinesh Kumar Sethi of Kalikadevisahi of Puri, who has been pursuing his final graduation degree in the college, had brought allegation against the department head for harassing him since his admission into the department.

“She used to debar me from all facilities in the department like getting seminar books, library books, drinking water, besides frequently making casteist remarks against me. She also threatened that she will ensure I fail in the exams,” Sethi said.

“I cant understand what I have done to deserve this. Is it a crime for a person from scheduled caste to aspire to higher education,” said the anguished student.

“I fought for my right and informed the four principals who had come during these years but failed to get justice from any of them. Later, I filed an FIR at Puri Town police station against the department head on February 2 this year. Under pressure, the college management committee put up an investigation report before the district administration which was found to be false- through an RTI query that proved the report submitted was not examined properly,” the harassed student said.

“Yesterday, once again I submitted a petition to district Collector and today to the Chief Secretary of Odisha, Principal Secretary of Higher Education and Secretary of Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) Development to make a thorough investigation and demanded stringent action against the department head for her discriminatory mindset towards castes,” Dinesh added.

Quoting from the secretary’s reply, Dinesh said they will direct the college authority soon to make a thorough investigation into the matter.

Source: Sun Times