An alleged incident of a man peeping into the toilets of ladies hostel at Madras University’s Guindy campus triggered a protest from students who wanted the administration to immediately pay attention to the basic infrastructure needs on the campus.
The girls in the hostel said they noticed a man on Wednesday morning peeping into their toilets and immediately complained to the staff. As it did not yield any response, later in the evening, the girl students themselves tried to catch the man who approached their toilets again in the evening. “Two of us managed to get hold of him. But he was too stout and managed to run away as there are no proper compound walls around the campus,” said a student from North East who was doing her post graduation in the University.
Appalled male and female students staged a sit-in protest at night on the campus, which hosts most of the pure science post graduate and research courses offered by the university. “Many of us have already noticed peeping Toms through our toilets. The girls have individually raised the issue with the hostel officials asking them to increase security. Unfortunately, officials are dismissive and instead suggest we are cooking up stories. Can’t we go to the washroom with a sense of security?” asked a girl student.
Although Vice-Chancellor R Thandavan met the students late at night on Wednesday and assured that the height of the compound wall around the campus would be raised, students resumed their protest on Thursday. They said the height of the compound wall was not the only issue. The campus actually lacks basic infrastructure. “To get a bottle of potable water we have to walk to the nearby Anna University campus, so we buy packed drinking water cans. When it rains, storm water mixes with sewage, overflows and gets stagnated around the campus. We are forced to walk through the filthy stagnant water to reach our classes. For several years we have been requesting the authorities to improve the abysmal state of infrastructure in the college campus and the hostel, but nothing happened. We hope Wednesday’s protest would wake them up,” said a student.
When Express visited the boys’ hostel, a strong, offensive odour from the toilets was all pervasive inside the hostel rooms and the mess. The kitchen of the hostel is hardly a few metres away from a sewage canal near the campus. The floors inside several rooms were found broken and students say this leads to intrusion of worms into the rooms, disturbing their sleep.
“Whenever we flag them, officials simply ask us why we joined the institution if the facilities were poor,” said a doctorate student.
On Thursday evening, students withdrew the protest after university registrar G Koteswara Prasad assured that he would take necessary steps to address their grievances. Thandavan could not be reached for comments, as he did not answer repeated phone calls from Express.