RAJAMAHENDRAVARAM: Taking serious note of the allegations of sexual harassment by the postgraduate girl students of Adikavi Nannaya University (AKNU), Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has ordered an inquiry into the matter.
Some girl students of Nannaya University, in a letter written to the Chief Minister, complained that N Surya Raghavendra, Head of Department of English, was sexually harassing them. They even lodged a complaint with Rajamahendravaram police, but no action has been taken, they said.
In their complaint to the Chief Minister, the girls stated that on the pretext of conducting special classes, the accused professor was asking them to spend time with him. They said that the harassment had been going on for the past few months and when they tried to lodge a complaint with the university authorities, Raghavendra threatened to fail them in the subjects or stop their registration for PhD.
They further said that the English professor had even claimed to be close to the university vice-chancellor and his words matter the most than their complaint. Stating that they suffered mental agony all these days and unable to bear the harassment further, they took the matter to the notice of the Chief Minister.
“We appeal to you CM sir, please dismiss the sadist professor Raghavendra. There are many girl students, who hesitated to come out and speak about this due to various reasons. Finally, we decided to bring this to your kind notice,” the girls stated.
It was alleged that Raghavendra who collected the mobile phone numbers of some students, chatted with them in indecent language. The Chief Minister has directed the officials of the Higher Education Department to look into the allegations against the HoD and submit a report.
P Suresh Varma, Vice-Chancellor of Nannaya University, said that “an internal inquiry is going on into the allegations against the HoD of English and it will be over in 2-3 days. Based on the inquiry report, we will initiate action against the professor.” When TNIE spoke to Raghavendra, he denied the allegations made against him, stating that they were baseless. “The girls were asked to attend special classes in the morning. Some students who are not interested had resorted to make baseless allegations against me. As the HoD for the last four years, I never faced any charge,” he said and suspected the hand of those who are against him being HoD, behind the entire episode.