MANGALURU: Three staff members of a private college in Bantwal are cooling their heels behind bars for allegedly sticking lewd posters containing the phone number and email id of a female lecturer in public toilets.
The accused have been identified as the private college's correspondent Prakash Shenoy, 44, of Laila in Benthangady taluk, economics lecturer Pradeep Poojary, 36, of Siddakatte, Bantwal, and Tharanath BS Shetty, 32, of Hebri, Udupi. Two or three others involved in the case are likely to be arrested soon.
Police commissioner N Shashi Kumar said the accused trio and victim, a 58-year-old Assistant Professor and Kannada author, were colleagues in the Bantwal college. Four years ago, following some differences with the college management, she took deputation to a government college in Mangaluru.
In December last year, the victim started getting calls from lecturers working in different colleges who said they got postcards containing defamatory notes about her. Later, in February this year, she started getting calls from unknown persons. Soon it became intolerable for the family and she lodged a police complaint.
The police commissioner said the accused initially wrote open postcards to the victim's relatives and lecturers known to her and then sent inland letters. Later, they stuck handbills containing her mobile number and email id in toilets located in bus stands in Sullia, Sampaje, Subramanya, Madikeri, Mysuru, Chikkamagaluru, Mudigere, Balehonnur, NR Pura and Shivamoga and other places. The victim said that in a span of 10 days, she got over 800 calls. Unable to bear the torture, she even thought of ending her life.
Police have collected some vital evidence from the cellphones of the accused like lewd messages printed on cards and CCTV footage of the accused in bus stands where the posters were stuck.
The commissioner said the motive behind the incident is still not clear as the accused started targeting the victim more than four years after she shifted to a new college. The investigation will bring out the truth, he added.