The Haryana Police have filed an FIR against Sameena Dalwai, a professor at the OP Jindal University, for harassing students and breaching their privacy by displaying their profiles in a dating App inside a classroom.
The FIR has been filed on the complaints of Renu Bhatia, the chairperson of Haryana State Women’s Commission. As per a report in the Indian Express, Anjoo Mohun, the Chief Communication Officer at the varsity, said, “We will follow the next steps as required by the authorities. Nothing is in place as of now as to what exactly is going to be the next step, but authorities have our cooperation.”
Earlier this month, the Haryana State Commission for Women (HSCW) had called for an FIR against the professor in the dating-app case. Notably, Dalwai did not appear before the commission on 6th December.
The HSCW said the “safety, security and dignity of the female students cannot be compromised with merely because she has chosen not to appear before the commission”.
In September, Dalwai allegedly violated the privacy of a student in the classroom by opening their Bumble dating-app account. Dalwai displayed the student’s private account on a Smart TV in a classroom full of students.
A video and screenshots of some chats doing rounds on X, formerly Twitter, showed the professor indulging in a detailed discussion about a dating account, which was allegedly a student’s. Moreover, as per reports, when the students refused to open their profiles, Dalwai allegedly told them to create fake IDs and suggested using Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s picture.
After Dalwai failed to appear before the HSCW twice, chairperson Renu Bhatia had written to the Police commissioner seeking an FIR against her. Bhatia insisted that the HSCW has spoken to several students in the University and has video evidence of their testimony against the professor.
It is notable here that, prior to the Bumble dating App row, an email by Sameena Dalwai had come to the fore, where she had claimed that Hamas didn’t do any atrocities on Israeli civilians, and it was all ‘fake news by Indian troll armies’. She wrote, “India’s response has been sad. Fake news of Hamas atrocity is created by Indian troll armies. We know their power- many of us get trolled regularly for our writing.”
The email was reportedly written to some persons who were against a talk held at the University by Professor Achin Vanaik, Retired Professor of International Relations and former Head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Delhi, now an activist.
The talk, titled ‘The History and Politics of the Palestinian Present’, reportedly made statements condoning the terrorist activities of Hamas against Israel, and glorifying ‘suicide bombing’ by terrorists.