The most anticipated fest at India’s premier institute took a nightmarish turn for the students of Lady Sri Ram College on 26th October. The day of the much awaited concert of the IIT Kanpur fest couldn’t have gone worse for the girls from LSR’s Drama and Dance societies. From the moment of their entrance they were constantly regaled with hoots, barks and cheap Hindi songs. The girls were largely outnumbered by boys and every time a girl stood up from her seat the crowd would make lewd comments at her and take pictures with their cell phones.

When the concert was to begin, the crowd allegedly pressed against the girls under the pretence of jostling for seats, touching and pushing them, and almost causing them to fall. One girl had her neck grabbed and her shirt pulled at while another suffered bruises due to the crowd’s attentions. Humiliated and outraged the girls approached the volunteers for help. Most of them swiftly came to their rescue and tried to drive the mobs away.

However a few of them were of little help, instead staying put to enjoy the spectacle. One volunteer, feigning deafness allegedly pressed unnecessarily close to a girl in order to hear her complaint. The volunteers did manage in the end to move the girls up to the front seats to get them away from the crowd. However most girls feel that this remedial action hardly made amends for what they had had to suffer through. Such behaviour was unexpected and shocking. Some students later came and apologized to them. However the girls received no formal apology from the authorities.

Neha, a third year English Hons student at LSR says:

“Such an incident should never have occurred at an institute where only the cream of the country gains admittance. The IITians say we shouldn’t judge them or generalize on the basis of this incident, but the fact remains that there were around 80 to 100 people in the mob surrounding us as against only twenty who tried to help us.”

Payal, a third year B.A. Programme student at LSR says:

“It was very disappointing to know such a thing could occur at such a premier institute. I was in shock. We want to take some action. We cannot remain quiet about what happened.”

Tanvi, a third year English Hons student at LSR says:

“As soon as we entered the hooting began. We were completely outnumbered. Although there was enough room the crowd deliberately jostled us and more guys kept joining in. We even lost our slippers amidst the pushing and we would have fallen if we hadn’t been holding on to each other.”

Roshni, a second year English Hons student at LSR says:

“This was a case of a serious lapse of management in all fields. Even the security was at fault. My room had been broken into while the concert was taking place and my laptop stolen.”

Neha continues:

“Today the only power those people had had was that of being male and they grossly misused it. Tomorrow the same people shall go on to become CEO’s and big executives and hold power in the real sense of the word. The prospect is frightening”