Secret Audio Clips: Did St Stephen’s Principal Intimidate Victim?

Audio clips recorded by molestation victim suggest St Stephen’s Principal Valson Thampu urged her to drop charges.

A St. Stephen’s research scholar, who was allegedly molested by a college professor, claimed on Thursday that she has submitted a set of audio clips she secretly recorded during her meetings with the accused and principal Valson Thampu to the police.

Listen to the explosive revelations which The Quint gained access to:

The complainant had approached the police on June 19 alleging that she had been molested by Satish Kumar, an assistant professor in the college’s Chemistry Department.

Explosive Revelations

The recording is one hour and three minutes long whereas the original unedited recording submitted to the Delhi Police is one hour and ten minutes long.

Note: The authenticity of this tape has not been verified yet.

In the audio excerpt, Valson Thampu appears to be encouraging the victim to drop the charge of sexual harassment. In exchange, he assures her that she will receive her PhD.

At least at face value, seem to confirm the accusations made by the victim.

Four Accusations by the Victim

– Thampu was shielding the accused when the matter was reported to him. He criminally intimidated the victim to give a written application to him expressing her consent to close the matter in college itself. This, he claimed, would prevent any delay or problems in completion of her PhD.

– The audio recordings that were submitted contained conversations between Valson Thampu, Dr Satish Kumar and the victim which took place on January 7 and 9, and 10, 2015 in the principal’s office.

– These recordings of the actual conversations clearly establish that the victim had been pressurised, intimidated and induced by Rev. Thampu in particular not to raise the issue of sexual harassment and sexual assault by Satish.

– She had been forced to submit these recordings in view of the massive campaign launched by Thampu and Satish to malign her character as a women as well as a PhD research student. She has surrendered her mobile phone to police which has all the recordings and SMSes exchanged between her and the accused.

For now, the police has refused to divulge any details. Thampu, who has been maintaining that he had duly forwarded the girl’s complaint to the college’s Internal Complaints Committee (ICC), was also not available for his comment.

(PTI Inputs)

We tried to reach Dr. Thampu for his version of events, but he was unavailable for comment. Below is a copy of the e-mail that was sent to him.