Mealtime rule leads to menstruation check on hostel girls

Over 60 girl students of a college in Bhuj in Gujarat's Kutch district were allegedly forced by

hostel authorities to remove their undergarments to check if they were menstruating.

As the allegation came to light and caused an uproar, a police team reached the educational institute to begin a

probe, a senior official said on Friday. The alleged incident took place on February 11 in the

Shree Sahajanand Girls Institute (SSGI), run by a trust of the Swaminarayan Temple, the official said.

A girl student said the incident took place in the hostel located in campus of the SSGI, which offers graduate

and under-graduate courses. "We have sent a police team under a woman inspector to

talk to the victims and are in the process of filing an FIR. Though the girls are not ready to come forward, we are

confident that one girl will come forward to lodge an FIR," Kutch West Superintendent of Police Saurabh Tolumbia said.

The Gujarat State Commission for Women has taken suo motu cognisance of the alleged incident and has sought a

detailed report from the Bhuj police, said chairperson Leela Ankoliya.

Darshana Dholakia, in-charge Vice-Chancellor of the Krantiguru Shyamji Krishna Verma Kutch University, to which

the SSGI is affiliated, has also formed a committee to probe the incident.

"The hostel has a rule that girls having periods are not supposed to take meals with other inmates. However, some

menstruating girls broke this rule. "When the matter reached the authorities, some of the

girls voluntarily allowed a women employee to check them," Dholakia told reporters on Friday.

"Girls have told me they apologised to authorities for breaking hostel rules. Girls told me they were not threatened

and it was they (girls) who were at fault. "Technically, there is nothing much left to be done in

this case," Dholakia claimed. The girl student, a hostel inmate, said more than 60

students were taken to the washroom by a woman staffer and made to remove their undergarments to check if they were

menstruating. "We were tortured by hostel authorities in this manner

at the behest of college principal Rita Raninga. We want strict action against her and other staff members involved in

the incident," she said.