In a series of shocking revelations, a student from a reputed private university in Sonipat was accused of eight cases of sexual harassment.
Trigger Warning- Harassment, Gaslighting, Abuse
On 6th May, a student of a premier institution took to Instagram to talk about how she was repeatedly harassed, manipulated and gaslighted by a fellow batchmate. Speaking to DU Beat, the victim recounts her story “He coerced me into physical intimacy, forced me into oral sex, and also tried to stop me from having other friends. He would get “jealous” of my other friends, and get angry but in reality, he just wanted me to not talk to anyone else about any of the stuff that he did to me.” The victim also talked about how their sexual interactions were allegedly recorded multiple times without consent and stored despite him being asked to delete the same.
In response to these allegations, the perpetrator allegedly instead chose to attack her character. “I have been called a ‘sick fuck’ and a “lying, manipulative, attention-seeking, clout mongering whore”. I have been threatened with a ‘defamation case’ by my perpetrator.” “Other than him, his ‘supporters’ have left no dearth of saying things to force me to take the posts down, starting from slut-shaming to death threats. I deal with countless such DMs”. The victim has chosen to pursue this matter with the internal complaints committee in her college.
After this, a lot of other people also chose to come out with their stories in public. One of the victims alleged how she had to face continuous nagging to indulge in sexual acts she did not want to and how she was coerced and manipulated into sending nudes. “There was more of mental harassment. A lot of times, it wasn’t my fault, but he made me think it was.”
“I’ve got screenshots of him asking me sext with him and call him and send pictures while he was dating another girl in October 2019. I was drunk during Diwali, and I was talking to him for some reason so on 27th October, he asked if I plan to get drunk again because he thought drunk me would send him nudes, when the day before, a very drunk me had denied that.”
The victim talks about how as a fourteen-year-old, she was forced to take birth control pills since the perpetrator allegedly did not want to wear a condom while having sex. A pattern of an attempt at controlling other relationships was allegedly seen in this relationship too, “He wanted me to choose him over my own family, got jealous of my brother because I could spend time with him. He was against one of my friends because she didn’t like him, so he wanted me to physically hurt her, or else he would break up with me.” Here too, the victim talks about how she was manipulated into sending him nude pictures of herself, which he still possesses and not only resurfaced later with several other accounts online but were also allegedly used by him to masturbate even when he was dating someone else.
One of the perpetrator’s ex-girlfriends said “Yes, mostly it (sex) was coerced because he chose to ignore if I wanted to do it or not. He’d coerce me into sexting and sending pictures which I clearly didn’t want to at that point but he’d throw tantrums or break up with me. It was really immature, to begin with.” On being asked if he apologised, she said “No he hasn’t. in fact, after breaking up I chose to remain silent and get rid of him being the bigger person but he chose to slander me online making jokes on my insecurity so it’s safe to say he wasn’t even apologetic. He’d post chat screenshots of his friends humiliating me, joking about insecurities that I trusted him with. One of them even made a meme about how I keep going back to my ex when I merely talked to him for a while.”
There were several more victims who chose to not make their stories public because of fear of backlash from the accused and his friends.
Feature Image Credits: The Vice
Khush Vardhan Dembla
