A high-level committee has been constituted to investigate the sexual harassment incident that rocked National Institute of Technology-Tiruchi (NIT-T) recently and look into the safety of students, G. Aghila, director, said on Monday.
Ms. Aghila addressed students on Monday to apprise them of the steps being taken officially since the incident was reported on Thursday.
According to an official statement, “The Director met the student community on Monday to calm their fears and apprehensions. An interim committee has been constituted for hostel administration with immediate effect.”
The statement added that the NIT-T administration had “swung into action by constituting a high-level committee to look into the safety of students on campus. In light of misconduct by a contract technician, the committee met with all stakeholders and was apprised of the issues concerning the welfare of the students.”
On Thursday, G. Kathiresan, 38, a technician hired by the institution on a contract basis to fix the WiFi system inside the hostel, entered the hostel room of a woman engineering student to install the system and sexually harassed her.
Acting on a complaint from the survivor’s father, the Tiruverumbur All Women Police had arrested the technician on Thursday. They registered a case against him under Sections 332(3) and 75(1) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita, read with Section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Woman Harassment Act.
Students had expressed their outrage over the hostel’s administrative staff’s initial response to the reporting of the incident by holding a sit-in protest from Thursday night to Friday mid-morning.