November 19, 2018:
On Monday, a media report disclosed that an Indian-origin professor in the US compelled his students to act as his personal servants.
The Kansas City Star daily said in a report that it had found that during professor Ashim Mitra's 24 years at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, his students hauled equipment & bused tables at his social events.
They were expected to tend his lawn, look after his dog & water the house plants, sometimes for weeks at a time when he & his wife were away.
The claims were made by nearly a dozen of Professor Mitra's former students.
Former student Kamesh Kuchimanchi told the newspaper that he considered his life at UMKC as "nothing more than modern slavery".
The students' complaints were corroborated by Professor Mitra's former colleagues, who told the daily that they saw the students performing menial tasks off campus or heard their complaints.
A few colleagues repeatedly told the professor his actions were improper, yet nothing changed.
According to allegations in pending litigation, the University not only knew about Mitra's behaviour, but administrators overlooked complaints for years because he was among the most successful faculty members in corralling millions in research dollars for the school.
A student who earned her doctorate at the UMKC pharmacy school in 2013 told that students feared the repercussions if they refused Mitra.
Meanwhile, one of his colleagues, Mridul Mukherji, also from India, has sued Mitra & university officials.
He filed two related lawsuits in Jackson County Circuit Court - one in 2016 & one in 2018.
The lawsuits claim that Professor Mitra mistreated vulnerable foreign students and that the university retaliated against Mr Mukherji when he complained.
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