Even as APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU) authorities took deposition from the stakeholders at the Tom’s College of Engineering, Mattakkara, in the light of complaints from students and parents, students’ organisations took out violent protest marches to the institution on Friday.
Speaking to the media, P.G. Padmakumar, registrar of the technological university, said they had “grievous complaints” from parents and they would take evidence from all stakeholders, including students, parents, faculty, and representatives of the management, before preparing a report to be submitted to the university authorities for further action.
Meanwhile, parents, who thronged the campus to depose before the commission, alleged that their wards were tortured, mostly mentally, by the chairman. A parent said more than 25 students in the first and second year of their programmes were on the verge of leaving the campus.
Even as the commission continued to take evidence on the complaints, about a dozen ABVP activists held a demonstration and destroyed the windowpanes and gates of the college building.
The nearly half-a-dozen personnel deployed from the nearly Pallickathode police station remained onlookers.
The ABVP protest was followed by a larger contingent of SFI workers, who entered the campus and “liberated” the girl students who, according to them, were locked up in a classroom by the college authorities to prevent them from appearing before the university commission. At least three SFI activists and a few policemen were injured in the protest march.
The last to stage a protest was the KSU.
Meanwhile, Chintha Jerome, chairperson of the Kerala State Youth Commission, who visited the campus, had directed the police chief, district authorities, and the university to submit a report within seven days.
The institution, which was at the receiving end of criticism from students and a section of the local people for long for the harsh disciplinary actions and controversial personal conduct of the chairman of the management committee Tom T. Joseph, suddenly found itself in the epicentre of a storm following complaints by the parents of a few girl students to the government authorities.
