THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Five female students of Chempazhanthy SN College here have raised a complaint against an assistant professor for allegedly sending them sexual innuendos and lewd messages over WhatsApp. The complaint was mailed to college principal Dr Anilkumar, but the authorities are yet to act on it, said the complainants.
As per the complaint, the accused, who is also an active member of a prominent teacher’s association, regularly sent lewd messages and sexual innuendos to the students apart from bombarding them with WhatsApp video calls at odd hours.
“The incidents we have mentioned occurred in 2020, especially after the classes went online. Each student thought it was an isolated incident until we got to know that it wasn’t. Several students were shocked to get late-night video calls apart from lewd messages. We feel ours is just the tip of an iceberg and there could be more victims,” said one of the complainants.
They victims alleged that the college authority is not keen on pursuing their complaint, which was filed on June 30 with the college principal and it is yet to be forwarded to the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC). One of the victims even alleged that the ICC, which is mandatory as per the Supreme Court guidelines, is not functioning in the college - a claim that was contested by the college principal.
“The ICC is functional and the only thing is that it was recently re-constituted. It has started an inquiry. The matter has also been conveyed to the police,” the principal said.
One of the complainants told TNIE that there were efforts from a section of college tutors and even local politicians to settle the matter before it reaches the ICC. “The local party leaders got in touch with one of the students asking her not to press the complaint further. Another student’s father is part of a unformed force in the state and he was pressurized by his association leader to take back the complaint,” the complainant said.
The alleged misconduct from the part of the teacher came to fore when the students revealed the matter to an external academician while attending a webinar. The complaint was mailed to the principal on July 30, but instead of forwarding it to the ICC, the principal summoned the students and their parents to his office on August 2 via post, which is a violation of the Supreme Court guidelines, the students alleged.
As per the protocol, the allegation of sexual misconduct should be probed by the ICC alone and no other persons or committees have the right to pursue that matter. The identity of the complainants should also be kept confidential, but the students said their identities were deliberately revealed by a section of teachers in order to pressurize them.
Earlier this week, as many as 70 students registered their protest against the inaction of the college authorities. The students, through their e-mails, demanded the principal to take appropriate action on the basis of the complaint from the victims. However, these students were later threatened of police case and suspension by their department heads and tutors, one of the complainants said.
Meanwhile, the principal felt the complaint was not genuine and suspected conspiracy behind the episode. “It seems someone is triggering the whole issue, those people will be exposed soon. The complaint was in fact mailed from a fake id. The college’s name was also misused in the mail id, and we have given a complaint to the cyber police,” he said.