An ‘insensitive remark’ by a teacher against striking students led to tension at the Visakha Government Women’s College here on Thursday. The unrelenting students demanded suspension and arrest of the accused teacher and withdrew their protest after the teacher was taken into custody and taken away by the police.
The students have been demanding the removal of stray dogs for the past several months. The dogs were littering the stairs, lobbies and classrooms but Physical Education Teacher V. Sandhya Rani was against handing them over to the municipal corporation.
She has been feeding the dogs every day and the strays made the college campus their home for a long time. When the girls told their teacher that they were unable to bear the stink, she allegedly used to ask them to clean the classrooms.
The students boycotted classes in protest against what they called ‘humiliating attitude’ of their teacher towards them. The situation took an ugly turn in the afternoon when Ms. Sandhya Rani allegedly cast aspersions on the character of the striking students speaking to TV channels saying that they were ‘giving in to the demands’ of the Principal in charge V. Sudhakar Rao.
The students staged a dharna at the college demanding suspension and arrest of the accused teacher for her ‘derogatory comments’. Students Federation of India (SFI) leaders also came in support of the striking students leading to tension on the campus.
Some of the dogs gave birth to puppies and the dogs and pups were littering the college campus, lobbies, stairs and classrooms with their faecal matter.
“We had reported the matter to the then District Collector N. Yuvraj a month ago and he directed the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) authorities to look into the issue.
The GVMC employees caught five dogs and released 10 dogs on our campus later,” Principal told The Hindu . The Principal wrote a letter to the higher authorities recommending suspension of the accused teacher.
The dogs have bitten visitors, staff members, former principal and some students during the last one year.
