By IANS,
Chandigarh: The Panjab University Students Union Thursday demanded a probe into how one of its students managed to go on an educational trip to the US by showing bogus papers. The student was arrested on molestation charges while in Boston.
The student, Nitin Jindal, 22, went to the US to participate in the 56th session of Harvard National Model United Nations (HNMUN) held in Boston Feb 11-14.
Jindal said he was a student of University Institute of Law Studies (UILS) of Panjab University (PU).
He was arrested Feb 14 following a complaint of molestation by a Boston resident but was released on bail after he submitted a guarantee of $2,500. However, police confiscated his passport and visa documents and asked him not to leave the US till April 6, when the next hearing is slated.
A committee, constituted by the Panjab University (PU) to look into the issue, found that two PU teams — one from the UILS and the other from the University School of Law — had participated in the conference.
However, PU authorities are stunned as no institute with the name University School of Law exists here.
“We received a formal reply from HNMUN Wednesday. They have informed us two teams participated in the conference. The UILS was our official team but there is no department called University School of Law in the PU,” a member of the committee said here Thursday.
“Now we are trying to ascertain the details of participants of this bogus team and how they got the affidavit and PU documents to support their case. We will submit our final inquiry report tomorrow (Friday),” he said.
Jindal, who hails from Bathinda town in Punjab, is currently staying with his cousin in Boston.
This year, the PU officially sent 21 students to participate in the HNMUN event but the arrested student was among 25 others who had applied online in their individual capacity.
There are reports that a few students, who are not even studying at the PU, had participated in this conference on the documents of this varsity.
Panjab University Students Union (PUSU) members Thursday levelled serious allegations against PU officials and demanded a thorough probe.
“SOPU (Students’ Organisation of Panjab University) chief, Brinder Dhillon, who was also part of this trip, is not a student of PU. However, he mentioned in the documents that he is a student of sixth semester of the Law department,” said Simranjit Singh Dhillon, PUSU president, here Thursday.
“Dhillon’s documents were attested by senior officials of this university but nobody realized that he is not a part of this institution. It smells of a big conspiracy and we demand a thorough probe by some independent agency.”
SOPU had won the Panjab University campus students’ council elections of 2009-10 and presently it officially represents over 10,000 students of the varsity.
However, PU authorities said they will take strict action against the culprits.
“Once we get the names of culprits behind this fiasco, strict action will be taken against all of them. This is a serious issue and we would not spare anybody,” said Naval Kishore, dean-students’ welfare of PU, here Thursday.