A researcher filed a rape complaint against an assistant professor of Kalyani University’s visual arts department on Monday. Nadia police have started a probe.
A case has been started on the basis of the complaint lodged by the 37-year-old woman with Kalyani police station. She has alleged that the assistant professor raped her several times on campus since last November.
The police identified the accused as Bibekananda Mukherjee, a resident of Noapara in Dum Dum, and the woman’s research guide.
However, no action could be taken against the accused till Wednesday evening as he remained traceless.
The woman has recorded her statement before a magistrate. A probe team visited the campus on Wednesday and examined the spots where the alleged crime took place.
A section of teachers and students of the Kalyani University blamed the university authorities for trying to protect the accused.
They said the authorities did not bother to initiate any legal step against Mukherjee.
Varsity sources said prior to the police complaint the woman had submitted a written complaint to the VC against the teacher in March.
The VC then had replaced Mukherjee as her guide and formed an internal inquiry committee that had sought Mukherjee’s clarification.
Mukherjee had refuted the woman’s allegations. The authorities then issued a showcause notice as his reply was “quite unsatisfactory”.
“Despite the seriousness of the matter, the university administration did not bother to lodge a police complaint,” a senior professor said.
The Telegraph’s calls and text messages to VC Malay Kumar Sanyal went unanswered.
The woman has alleged that between November last year and February this year, Mukherjee, as her research guide, summoned her to the campus a number of times for trivial reasons and raped her in the deserted department.
Superintendent of police of Ranaghat police district, Avijit Banerjee, said a probe is on.
