Romp in varsity sets tongues wagging

MUMBAI: High drama played out on the University of Mumbai's Kalina campus in the early hours of Tuesday when two students were found in a compromising position on the floor of the student council office. The incident was captured on a mobile phone camera by other students through the window. The clips were immediately sent to the media. By 8.00 am, the campus was crawling with cameras, policemen and the members of the National Students Union of India (NSUI). While the faces of the couple are not visible on the MMS clips, the male student accused of making out with a female hostelite is the general secretary of the university's student council. He also belongs to the Samatavadi Chatrabharati Party, which for the past two years has been beating the NSUI hollow in student elections. Student polls are due to be held in two months' time. The man who complained to the police and informed the media is NSUI president Sadaf Aboli. No police case has been filed. The general secretary, a final-year MSc student, told TOI: "I have not indulged in any kind of activity that I am being accused of. My exams begin in two days' time and I am slated to fly to America for further studies." His party president Gajanand Kale called the hullabaloo "dirty politics that NSUI is indulging in two months before the elections. In fact, the boy shares a brotherly love with the girl". At around 4.30 am, students in the study hall, which is on the second floor of the Administrative Building, heard noises that seemed to be emerging from the ground-floor office, and went down to check. "They peered through the window and saw the general secretary and a girl student making out," alleged Aboli, who is the same person who blackened the face of a Wilson College professor two years ago after alleging that the latter had sexually harassed a girl student. The professor however was given a clean chit by the police. At the Kalina campus on Tuesday, the students who had filmed the couple on the floor called up Aboli, who rushed to the spot. "I went to the council office with the university security and locked the door from the outside and waited for the police," he said. In the meantime, a flurry of messages was sent to the media. Other student organisations also got into the act and started sending the MMS clips to all and sundry. The clips show two students necking on the floor of the council office. When the police unlocked the door, Aboli said, the student council's general secretary and two girl students walked out. Oddly, while the general secretary denied all allegations, one of the girls told the police that she had taken part in a "consensual act". The three students told police they were in the council office till late while working on the varsity's annual magazine. The girls, also final-year MSc students, had obtained night-out passes from their hostel wardens to work on the magazine. University officials have pulled up the security officers for allowing the students to work till late. University pro vice chancellor A D Sawant said that the security officer complained that students regularly used the council office for a host of reasons even after office hours. "Now the key will be kept with the security head. If students need to work till late, they will have to seek permission and a peon will stay on till the office is closed," he added. The varsity has also set up a committee to look into the matter. Members from other student organisations alleged that the council office has become a den for all kinds of illegal activities. While they claimed that a female student had complained about the goings-on a month ago, Sawant said that no such complaint had been received. Former student council general secretary Shoaib Qureshi said the varsity must look into the matter and take stern action against the guilty. Police sources said the BKC police should have registered an offence as the two students were found committing an obscene act in a public place. However, BKC senior police inspector Rolfie Pareira refused to agree. "It is the university that has to take action," he said.