(Asian independent) New Delhi, India — Dalit Adivasi Shakti Adhikar Manch (DASAM) expresses its strongest condemnation and outrage over the dehumanising incidentthat occurred on October 26, 2025, at Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU), Rohtak, Haryana, where a few women sanitation workers were harassed and coerced by two male supervisors, Vitender and Vinod Hooda, and Assistant Registrar Shyam Sunder while cleaning the university’s sports complex ahead of Haryana Governor Ashim Kumar Ghosh’s scheduled visit. The women sanitation workers, belonging largely to Dalit communities, alleged that despite repeatedly informing the supervisors that they were unwell and in pain due to menstruation, they were pressured to work faster. When they refused, the supervisors threatened them with dismissal and, shockingly, demanded photographs of their private parts and sanitary pads as “proof” of menstruation. Two of the women sanitation workers, under extreme duress, were forced to comply with the degrading demand. Such a demand represents a gross abuse of authority and an obscene intrusion into the most intimate and private aspects of women’s lives.
Nevertheless, this grotesque violation of bodily autonomy, privacy, and women’s dignity constitutes not only sexual harassment and abuse of power but also a reflection of the deeply entrenched casteist and patriarchal control that continues to shape India’s informal and contractual labour sectors.
Meanwhile, DASAM welcomes the registration of an FIR against these three, including two male sanitation supervisors and an assistant registrar, under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for sexual harassment, intimidation, and outraging the modesty of women. However, while the initial suspension of the accused is a necessary step, it cannot be seen as sufficient. Justice demands a transparent, independent, and time-bound investigation, along with robust institutional reforms to ensure that such acts of humiliation can never recur.
This incident is a symptom of systemic violence embedded in the caste and gender hierarchies. Sanitation work continues to be hereditary and caste-determined, with Dalit men and women disproportionately forced into the exploitative and stigmatised forms of labour.
At universities, municipalities, and public institutions across the country, thousands of women from Dalit communities are employed as contractual sanitation workers without job security, grievance redressal mechanisms, or protection against harassment. They face daily indignities, wage theft, and casteist treatment, often without the ability to seek justice for fear of retaliation.
The MDU incident exposes not just individual misconduct butinstitutional complicity, a culture that allows powerful officials to dehumanise women workers, reduce them to their caste identities, and treat them as disposable labour. The humiliation these women faced is emblematic of how patriarchal and casteist power structures collude to deny Dalit women their constitutional rights to equality, dignity, and freedom from discrimination.
Universities, which should serve as centres of constitutional values and human dignity, have instead replicated the hierarchies of exclusion that pervade society. That such an atrocity occurred within a public university, under government oversight, underscores the failure of institutional accountability and the urgent need for systemic reform.
The acts committed at MDU are not merely unethical; they are criminal offences under Indian law and a betrayal of the constitutional promise of equality and dignity.
The incident violates multiple fundamental rights and statutory provisions, including:
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Article 14 – Right to Equality before Law
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Article 15 – Prohibition of Discrimination on Grounds of Religion, Race, Caste, Sex or Place of Birth
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Article 17 – Abolition of Untouchability and its Practices
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Article 19(1)(g) – Right to Practise Any Profession with Dignity
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Article 21 – Right to Life with Dignity, Privacy, and Personal Liberty
Furthermore, the actions of the accused constitute offences under the following laws:
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Sections 73, 77, and 124 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023 (corresponding to Sections 354A, 354, and 506 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860) — for sexual harassment, assault, voyeurism, and criminal intimidation of women.
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Sections 3(1)(r), 3(1)(s), and 3(2)(v) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, for intentionally insulting, humiliating, and violating the dignity of Dalit women sanitation workers on the basis of their caste.
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Section 509 of the IPC (now Section 138 of the BNS)—for outraging the modesty of women through verbal, physical, or visual means.
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Provisions of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act) — for creating a hostile and degrading work environment through acts of sexual coercion and humiliation.
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Provisions under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, for failure to ensure safe and dignified working conditions for contract workers.
Substantially, such acts, when committed against Dalit and other marginalised women performing sanitation work, represent the convergence of caste-based violence, gender oppression, and labour exploitation, a triad of injustices that remain structurally embedded in India’s institutions.
Furthermore, DASAM calls upon the Haryana state government, the National Commission for Women, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, the University Grants Commission (UGC), and other relevant government authorities and organisational bodies to intervene decisively and ensure full justice. However, DASAM stands in unwavering solidarity with the women sanitation workers of MDU and with all women from marginalised communities across the country who face systemic violence in the name of informal and contractual labour and demands immediate dismissal and criminal prosecution of all officials involved in the coercion, harassment, and subsequent cover-up, under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and the POSH Act, 2013. A court-monitored independent investigation must be initiated to ensure impartiality and prevent institutional influence or retaliation against the survivors. The affected women must receive full protection from job loss or intimidation, along with trauma counselling, psychological support, and fair monetary compensation for the mental and emotional harm inflicted. Their continued employment must be guaranteed with dignity and security. DASAM further calls for structural and institutional reforms, including the immediate establishment of a fully functional Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) at MDU with representation from women sanitation workers, Dalit rights advocates, and independent observers. Universities and government institutions across Haryana must adopt humane and dignified menstrual leave policies that respect privacy and prohibit any form of intrusive verification, recognising such practices as sexual harassment. Comprehensive gender and caste sensitisation programmes should be made mandatory for all administrative, supervisory, and contractual staff. Beyond the immediate case, this incident underscores the urgent need to end the exploitative contractual labour system that perpetuates vulnerability and caste discrimination. Sanitation workers must be regularised with permanent status, fair wages, health insurance, provident fund, and safe working conditions, in accordance with the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act. A statewide audit of workplace conditions for women sanitation workers in public institutions should be conducted, accompanied by the creation of an independent oversight mechanism to monitor the enforcement of the SC/ST and POSH Acts. Additionally, robust whistleblower protections, survivor-centred grievance redressal systems, and annual public reporting on caste- and gender-based harassment cases are essential to ensure transparency and accountability. DASAM urges the Haryana government, universities, and civil society to launch sustained awareness campaigns to challenge menstrual stigma, caste bias, and gender violence, reaffirming constitutional values of equality, dignity, and justice in workplaces. Justice in this case must not be limited to punishing individuals, FIRs, and suspensions; it must extend to structural accountability and reparative action, and dismantle the systemic structures that allow such degradation to persist. The women of MDU have shown extraordinary courage in asserting their rights and humanity; it is now the moral and constitutional duty of the State, judiciary, and society to ensure that their suffering leads to transformative change, not silence, stigma, or token reform. The right to equality and dignity is not negotiable; it is the cornerstone of democracy, and its defence is a collective responsibility.
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