VILLUPURAM: Tension prevailed at the Villupuram Collectorate on Monday after six dropouts of a private naturopathy and yoga college picketed it and consumed poison, alleging inaction by the district administration on numerous petitions submitted against the college.
The situation went out of control when the former students refused to withdraw the protest despite two girl students fainting because they had taken poison.
Later, after peace talks, the district officials took the six former students to Mundiyambakkam GH in a police vehicle and ambulance.
Sources said some of the students of the SVS Naturopathy and Yoga Science College in Bangaram village near Kallakurichi, unable to tolerate the alleged torture and discrimination by the college administration, had voluntarily dropped out.
Later, they demanded action against the administration which, they said, had not provided them facilities as promised.
According to T Kannadhasan a former student, the college correspondent S Vasugi ordered students to clean toilets, cook food in the hostel and even made girl students wash her clothes, by threatening to detain them in the semester exam.
All the counselled students dropped out of the college and were staging protests, demanding the government to transfer them to other colleges. Now, only a few heirs of politicians and others, who were well-off, were still continuing the course as the administration provided them all the facilities.
Iyyappan, a student, said “The college collects exorbitant fees even from students admitted on merit, which was not notified either in the prospectus nor intimated to our parents.”
“When we raised our voice against this, the correspondent warned us of dire consequences,” he added.
Besides, the college demanded `5 lakh for the return of certificates of the dropped out students, said a parent.
When Express contacted the correspondent, she denied the allegations, saying some students were hand-in-glove with some local real estate mafias who were trying to grab the college land after defaming the institution. However, a district official said that 15 days ago, a team led by Kallakurichi RDO Malathy, conducted an inspection in the college and expressed dissatisfaction over the college amenities. The RDO had sent the report to the Collector Lakshmi.