Kasaragod: Student organisations in the Central University of Kerala on Tuesday launched protests against Vice Chancellor in charge Prof K C Baiju's decision to revoke the suspension of Assistant Professor Efthikar Ahamed B, facing charges of sexual harassment from students.
The Students Federation of India (SFI), the students' wing of the CPM, is picketing the Vice Chancellor's office. SFI activists also stuck a poster that read 'Get Out, Efthikar' on the English teacher's closed office door and planted their organisation's flag on the latch.
Raising slogans of 'we want justice', activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student organisation of the RSS, blocked the car of Registar M Muralidharan Nambiar.
The Congress's National Students' Union of India (NSUI) issued a statement condemning the university's decision, and said, "not just students but the entire female community is unsafe on the campus".
"We are ashamed of how the university handled the investigation. The actions undertaken by the administration in the name of inquiry are nothing but a denial of justice to students who courageously came forward and reported this heinous crime," said Divin Chacko, president of NSUI's campus unit. He said NSUI would also launch protests if he turned up on the campus to teach. "No abuser should be excused," he said.
Central University of Kerala's SFI unit committee called off the picketing after the Vice Chancellor in-charge agreed to take up with the Executive Council their demand to cancel the reinstatement of Efthikar Ahamed. "If the decision is not favourable to the students, SFI CUK will escalate the protests and strikes," SFI unit president Nanda and secretary Amal Azad said in a statement.
A former student of the Department of English said she would be coming to the campus for the convocation on March 11. "I don't want to see him there," she said.
Vice-Chancellor in charge Prof K C Baiju on Friday issued an order reinstating Efthikar Ahamed, an assistant professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature, based on the recommendations of the university's Internal Complaints Committee (ICC).
Efthikar Ahamed was expected to report on duty on Tuesday, February 27, but has not turned up, said students.
First-year PG students of the department accused him of delivering lewd lectures under the garb of poetry classes, and "crossing all boundaries" when he allegedly molested a student who fainted in class while writing an exam on November 13.
The university initially asked him to stay away from academic activities but suspended him on November 28, 2023, based on the interim report of the ICC.
During the inquiry, two more female students reported to the ICC that they were inappropriately touched by Efthikar Ahamed in class. But the ICC took the denial of Efthikar Ahamed as the last word and did not delve into the new allegations.
The ICC, however, did not give a clean chit to him on the original complaint. In its report, the ICC said Efthikar Ahamed, "is not absolutely cleared from the sexually oriented verbal remarks and irksome comments while schooling" but decided to let him off with an "advice" to refrain from such "annotations and connotations which are not necessarily warranted".
On the charge of molesting a female student who fainted in class, the ICC said the student's written complaint and oral statements given before the committee "were not matching completely" and so it was not in a position to conclude the incident.
Reinstating Efthikar Ahamed, the Vice Chancellor in charge ordered him to stay away from all academic activities related to the first-year students, who are the complainants. He also ordered a departmental inquiry against him as recommended by the ICC.
A police case is pending against Efthikar Ahamed. Bekal police had booked him under three counts of sexual harassment after the university forwarded the complaint to them.
