At least 22 second-year students verbally and sexually abused a group of juniors on campus earlier this month.
The IITs are at it again, doing what they've always done with great efficiency. It's a simple, three-part process.
1. Turn a blind eye to rampant sexual abuse and/or psychological torture on campus — until the sh*t well and truly hits the fan.
2. Watch aghast as a massive incident inevitably happens — like the one at IIT Kanpur earlier this month, where at least 22 second-year students verbally and sexually abused a group of first-year students.
3. Employ every trick in the book to deny, obfuscate or otherwise play down said incident, in order to protect a rapidly eroding, soon-to-be-non-existent "reputation".
Here's the Times of India report on what happened: Note the deputy director of the institute saying that "more than one student" was harassed by the 22 second-year students (this number, 22, is also courtesy a professor's blog and Facebook posts, not any official communication from IIT Kanpur). I seem to remember from my own math classes at IIT that "more than one" can mean as little as 2 (the number of people who killed themselves in my hostel, during 2007-2012, my stint at IIT Kharagpur; if you include other hostels as well, the toll reaches double digits for these 5 years alone) or as many as 16 (the number of confirmed student suicides in IITs alone from 2008-2011).
So which was it, sir, 2 or 16? Or was the number so embarrassingly large that you had to fall back on your usual lies and deception?
