Thiruvananthapuram/Kottayam: With Shankar Mohan quitting as the Director of the K R Narayanan National Institute of Visual Science Arts (KRNNIVASA) following student protests, its Finance officer Shibu Abraham has been given the temporary charge to run the day-to-day administrative affairs of the institution.

The appointment comes a couple of days after the students ended their 50-day-long protest with Shankar Mohan stepping down and the State Government promising to look into the 14 demands raised by them.

The three-member search committee appointed by the Government to find a replacement for Mohan will hold a meeting soon. A decision on matters like whether to invite applications and appoint a director and the like will be taken by the committee, headed by State Planning Board Vice Chairman Dr T K Ramachandran and veteran filmmakers Shaji N Karun and T V Chandran as its members.

Though the students ended their strike following a meeting with High Education Minister R Bindu on Monday, classes are yet to start. The teachers didn’t turn up the other day as they didn’t receive any communication about restarting the classes.

The main demand of the protesting students was the expulsion of Shankar Mohan, accusing him of practicing caste discrimination.

Former faculty threatens students' chairman 
One of the recently resigned faculties of the institute, assistant professor Nandakumar, allegedly threatened its students' union chairman Sreedev Suprakash through a voice message.

Nandakumar, who was part of the cinematography department, said in the message that he was SFI's chairman in a government college, and has many high profile connections. “You are unfit to be a chairman, you are nothing in front of me. See you in the film industry,” Nandakumar allegedly told Sreedev in the message.