CHENNAI: Women students of Government Dental College who are staying in the ladies hostel of the college in Broadway have alleged repeated harassment by men who flash them from an abandoned nearby building which belongs to a private trust.
Around 350 students stay in the hostel, and they allege the abandoned building is being regularly used by unknown men as a place for drinking. The hostellers say they feel threatened and extremely uncomfortable when these men flash the students.
Narrating her experience, one of the hostellers says, “It was around 9.30 pm on a day recently when we saw a man standing in the building and staring at us. When he didn’t move for almost an hour, we informed our hostel warden who called the police on patrol and chased away all the men in the building.”
Students rue such incidents have become so frequent that they are forced to keep all the windows shut, which affects ventilation. Come exam time, the students encounter another difficulty while studying.
A hosteller says, “During exam, we prefer to sit on the ramp at the hostel and study. However, this structure is right opposite the abandoned building and, we are forced to avoid it for the fear of harassment. We also see some men and women sitting near the entrance of our hostel and behave in an obscene manner.”
Narrating a shocking experience while entering the hostel on a particular day, another student says, “I noticed a man standing near the entrance. All of a sudden, he took off his clothes and I was shocked. There is nothing we can do to stop such harassment. Most of the time, we just move on like we didn’t notice it. These men also use the place near our hostel entrance as an open urinal.”
It may be noted that miscreants entered the hostel last week when students were sleeping and took away six mobile phones from the rooms. The hostellers say this was not the first instance as there was a burglary in the hostel last year when miscreants had taken away money from the students’ rooms.
S Premkumar, principal, Government Dental College, says the abandoned building has been causing much inconvenience to the girls and serious action has to be taken by the authorities. “I am not sure whether the property is entangled in any dispute. It has been left unattended for over a decade. But, this menace has to be addressed,” he says.
Local police, when contacted by TNIE, say entrance to the abandoned building has been blocked by putting up boards. Despite the boards, some people manage to enter the building. “Recently, a man got into the building and harassed the hostellers. But we apprehended him within a day,” he adds.