Four held for sexual harassment of students in Kakinada medical college

Amaravati, July 11 (IANS) Four employees of a government medical college in Andhra Pradesh’s Kakinada town have been arrested following allegations of sexually harassing the students.

Four persons working in the biochemistry lab at Rangaraya Medical College were arrested after 50 girl students complained to the college authorities that they had been sexually harassing them.

Kakinada District Collector Sagili Shan Mohan and Superintendent of Police G. Bindu Madhav addressed a press conference on Friday to announce details of the case after Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu took serious note of the incident.

They said a criminal case has been registered against the accused after three complaints were lodged at two police stations in the town since Friday morning.

The Collector stated that the college principal, Vishnu Vardhan, received an email from a girl student on July 9, complaining about the sexual harassment.

He said a total of 50 students complained that four people working in the biochemistry lab were sexually harassing them. Most of the complaints were against Kalyan Chakravarthy. The students complained that he was sending them obscene messages and comments on WhatsApp.

The Collector said that when the officials spoke to students, the names of Jimmy Raju, Gopalakrishna and Prasad also came up. All four have been suspended from duties.

While Kalyan Chakravarthy is a lab attendant, the other three are lab technicians. Both the Collector and SP said that strong action would be taken against the guilty.

Police were also investigating similar incidents happened in the college in the past.

Meanwhile, Home Minister V. Sunitha expressed her ire over the alleged sexual harassment at the medical college. She spoke to the district Collector and SP over the phone and enquired about the incident.

The Home Minister directed that stringent action be taken against the accused. She said such incidents would not be tolerated.

Earlier, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu took serious note of the incident and directed officials to act tough against those involved.

--IANS

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