'Shame for the Country': SFI condemns SAU gang rape, blames Centre for 'law and order failure'

The Students Federation of India (SFI) has urged the Union government and the Delhi Police to take quick actions in arresting the culprits of a heinous crime against a girl student of South Asian University (SAU), Delhi. The student was subjected to a gang rape by a group of men inside the campus on October 13, 2025.

Highlighting the objective of the SAU to provide world class facilities and professional faculty to students and researchers from every country of the SAARC region, the federation said that it was ‘shameful’ for the country that such a crime has happened in an international university in the national capital.

The administration of the university and the government is answerable for the horrific crime inside the campus, it said.

“The university administration under the guise of the centre ruling BJP government was infamous for suppressing the students’ democratic voices inside the campus. They have tried to resist with hostile actions against the students, whenever the students have tried to organise themselves within the campus,” the SFI said in an official statement.

“Instead of empowering the students, it is no doubt that lack of a democratic space will nurture anarchic situation in the campus with an imposed hierarchic subjugation of the students. The University administration and the Union Government is directly responsible for such a situation,” it added.

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Don't blame students for such incidents, SFI to govt

Referring to the RG Kar incident and the gang-rape of a Odisha student in West Bengal, the students’ federation stated that in the past years, the attack on women have increased in the country.

Numerous reports of attacks on women have come up in the country. It is ‘utterly shameful’ that an unsafe atmosphere for women is emerging within the country, the federation said. “It is a result of law and order failure and an emerging undemocratic atmosphere within the country, the responsibility of which directly lies on the union government,” it further said.

Attacking the SAU administration to disempower the students by targeting them with hostile measures, the SFI has also demanded the university and the government to stop practicing offensive measures against students by blaming them for such crimes rather than strengthening the security of female students.

Referring to the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee’s remarks on Durgapur rape-case, the federation said the remarks were shocking failure of law and order and the worse part, it was subsequent regressive and deeply insensitive.

Banerjee recently stated that girls living in hostel should not be out late hour and suggested that every student should have to follow the hostel rules and regulations. She also said that police cannot be present everywhere for every girl at all the places.

“This attempt to blame the victim and evade governmental responsibility for maintaining public safety is unacceptable and echoes the conservative, regressive desire to confine women to their homes, stripping them of their freedom,” it said.