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Amid Outrage Over Anti-Romeo Squads, Meerut College Principal Says 'Indian Society Doesn't Allow Boyfriends'

This comes even as husbands, brothers are being harassed.
Hindustan Times via Getty Images

Amid the outrage over Yogi Adityanath's anti-Romeo squads rounding up so called harassers of women in Uttar Pradesh, the principal of a college in Meerut has said that women in India shouldn't have boyfriends at all.

While the students of the Raghunath College are outraged by the gag rules that control their lives, they feel that teams of the Hindu Yuva Vahini keep a hawk's eye outside university and college gates has added to their woes.

But the principal, Sneha Gupta, says that it is not a problem, because why should girls have boyfriend at all. Here's what she told News18:

As seen in the video, the principal can also be heard telling the news channel, "We even have a ban on cell phones in our college. The problem was that students would leave after their boyfriends called them in their phones. Even our Indian society doesn't accept that you have come to study and you leave with your boyfriend."

While Gupta may care about the collective worries of the Indian society for its young women, the women are unsurprisingly unhappy.

A student told New18, "That is not done. Aren't we allowed to talk to guys? A guy can be a friend, a classmate or a brother. If the girl is saying that the boy is my friend, he should not be picked up."

The principal however said that relatives of women students aren't harassed.

Meanwhile anti-Romeo squads are rounding up young men with impunity, the police too are a part of this entire mechanism. This is allegedly to stop harassment of women in public. But in reality it is increasingly looking like a way of moral policing.

The Hindustan Times reported that on Wednesday anti-Romeo squads had rounded up 32 people in Ghaziabad. DNA reported that 50 youth have been arrested in Gorakhpur.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.