Teacher 'conducted nudity research'

 

The prestigious National Institute of Design here is probing allegations that a teacher conducted "experiments with nudity" on students.
National Institute of Design registrar Vijaya Deshmukh confirmed yesterday that a committee had been formed to investigate the matter.
The allegations were made a month ago in an email attributed to Saurabh Kumar, who left the institute in December 2009.
The email alleged that a senior faculty member had carried out nudity experiments on students to enhance creativity.
The teacher had forced students to undress before each other. Male and female students were told to undress separately.
The National Institute of Design registrar said the teacher had denied the allegation but had been asked to put his denial in writing.
Preliminary enquiries had failed to confirm the allegations but inquiries were continuing, she said.
The committee was expected to report on the allegations by the end of the July.
The former student's email said the teacher had said the nudity experiments were part of research he was conducting, to test if undressing in public lead to instant creativity.
However, no prior consent was given by students, nor were they aware that they were subjects of his personal experiments, the former student said.
"We were made to sign non-disclosure agreement," the former student said. "No part of the research was shown to us, neither was the source revealed," the email said.
The student also wrote that the students' requests for transparency, and that the institute be informed, were shunned.
The female students undressed in the girls' hostel and the male students in the boys' hostel.
This was meant to lead to the next stage where the female and the male students were supposed to undress together, the student alleged.
"He also encouraged the openness to allow students of the opposite gender to touch and explore each other's nude body without any hesitation," the student wrote.
"On finding the last activity absolutely unagreeable, some of the students protested and walked out of the class."