CHENNAI: Over a year after multiple complaints of sexual harassment were made against the head of the department of Oral Pathology at the Tamil Nadu Government Dental College in Chennai, and two months after a two-member inquiry team submitted its report, no action has been initiated by the state Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DME).
Although the main complainant, a senior assistant professor in the department, had died by suicide in January 2025, staff at the college told TNIE that the HoD’s alleged misconduct against female students continues unabated.
Staff at the college and former female postgraduate students told TNIE sordid tales of the harassment meted out by the HoD that included verbal abuse, casteist and sexual comments, body shaming and incitement towards self-harm. In one instance, he even allegedly asked a student to spit on him.
“Our HoD always speaks in a demeaning way and abuses us verbally using profanity,” stated the senior assistant professor’s complaint made with the college management on March 23, 2024.
Apart from casually tossing off offensive remarks, the HoD would also record audios and videos of female students without their consent, according to the complaint.
She recalled that the HoD had videoed her when she went to his cabin, making her extremely uncomfortable. He also made a habit of shouting insults at students, humiliating them, she had alleged.
Following her complaint, some former PG students also filed sexual harassment complaints against the HoD. One of them alleged that she had been subjected to verbal and emotional abuse as well as extreme body shaming.
“He told me my lower body is larger than my torso and that my legs are crooked due to my excess weight,” the former PG student said.
First inquiry report submitted to DME on July 31, 2024, says Principal
“He has also made comments about my skin tone, colour and the scars on my legs,” the former student added. “You look like this now, I wonder what will become of you when you become pregnant,” she recalled him telling her.
“He would come close to me, put his face too close to mine and ask me to spit on him,” she said in her complaint.
Most PG students had been at the receiving end of such behaviour, the former student told TNIE, adding that many of them silently endured the torment for fear of being failed in the internal exams.
Another former PG student, in her complaint, said the HoD always wanted to know whether she would try to kill herself. “Maybe he was scared that I would attempt suicide because of his behaviour towards me. Many times he has asked me, ‘You won’t die by suicide, no?’”
However, she said, on another day, he graphically described how he would end his life if he were in her shoes. “But you are still standing here shamelessly, listening to my scolding,” she recalled him concluding. A faculty member, on condition of anonymity, said, “I don’t know why the management took so long to finish the inquiry. He is still behaving in the same manner with the students, and their ordeal continues.”
Although the college has an Internal Complaints Committee, the management did not forward the senior assistant professor’s complaint to the panel. College officials said this was at the request of the complainant as she wanted to wait for more complainants to come forward. By then, six months had gone by from the date of the incident, and as the other complainants were former students, the issue could not be investigated by the ICC under the sexual harassment law, they said.
S Premkumar, principal of the Government Dental College, told TNIE that he still ordered an inquiry by an ICC member and another faculty. The two-member team’s report was submitted to the DME on July 31, 2024, he said, but the DME sent it back on September 13, 2024 asking for the HoD to be questioned as well. By then, one of the members of the team had gone on leave for medical reasons, the principal said, adding that the final report was submitted to the DME in March 2025.
TNIE reached out to DME Dr J Sangumani via text and phone for a response, but in vain. Health secretary Dr P Senthilkumar could also not be reached for comment.