Students of the Institute of Social and Economic Change (ISEC) voiced their protest on Monday against a search of the women’s hostel in their Nagarabhavi campus by the police on Sunday evening. Acting on a complaint, allegedly by a hostel inmate, police personnel searched all the rooms for a male student. They were accompanied by the warden. It turned out that the man is a scholar’s guardian, who was taking care of her as she is unwell.
According to hostelites, male police personnel barged into the hostel and started banging on their doors. When the door was opened, they entered the rooms. “It was an invasion of a privacy, and high handedness on the part of the police and the management for allowing such a raid,” said a female student who had joined the protest.
M.N. Anucheth, Deputy Commissioner of Police (West), said that the police had received a written complaint from a student alleging that a man was living in the women’s hostel. “A student complained that she was feeling unsafe because of his presence. We took permission from the warden to inspect the hostel,” said Anucheth.
The student’s complaint was registered as a petition, but no FIR was registered. The guardian was made to submit an apology to the police and has left the women’s hostel.
“There was a man in the hostel who was the local guardian of a woman scholar. If the police received a complaint, they should have approached the college and asked them to inquiry. Instead, what they did was intrusion,” said another student.
Students also voiced their objection to ‘moral policing’ and criticised ISEC Director M.G. Chandrakanth for allegedly not stopping the police from entering the campus.
However, Professor Chandrakanth told The Hindu that he had nothing to do with the police search and that he was unwell when the incident took place.
In the past, students had protested against the director’s ‘anti-student, high-handed, centralised decision making’ and increased surveillance measures on the campus.
On Monday, they wrote to the chairperson and the board of governors seeking Professor Chandrakanth’s resignation.
“The Governor of Karnataka had ordered an inquiry into the recent spate of protests, but it was overruled. Instead, the institute’s board of governors constituted a four-member committee to look into students’ grievances and protests,” said Prof Chandrakanth.
