The bad blood between a section of students and the principal-in-charge of Kerala's Kasaragod Government College has spilt out of the campus with the two sides filing police complaints against each other.
The police acted on Principal Dr M Rema's complaint by registering a non-bailable case against Mohammed Sanad (19), a second-year BA Economics student. He had earlier accused Dr Rema of humiliating him by forcing him to fall at her feet and apologise for threatening her.
Jabir Shibin -- a computer science student and president of the Muslim Students' Federation (MSF) in the college -- has also filed a police complaint against the principal alleging she used to humiliate him by publicly mocking his short height. The police have taken Rema's statement on the two complaints by the students but have not yet filed an FIR. On the contrary, she has accused Sanad of waylaying her, pulling off her sari, and attempting to slap her face on October 15.
The principal alleged that Sanad turned violent when she pulled him up for not wearing a mask while on campus. Town police inspector, Ajith Kumar, told The New Indian Express that when police reached the campus that day, the principal decided to not press charges against the student.
She filed her complaint on November 18 and the Vanitha Police charged Sanad with 'using criminal force to outrage her modesty' (Section 354 of the IPC) and 'using criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging their duty' (Section 353 of the IPC). The two sections are non-bailable offences and if convicted, Sanad may face up to two years in jail. Principal Rema said that she filed the complaint against Sanad now because the MSF held a press conference and ran a fake campaign against her, The New Indian Express reported.
"The MSF said I forced him to fall at my feet when the reality was he did it on his own. If I had forced a student to fall at my feet, why did MSF now go public or not go on strike then? MSF used Sanad for its political gain," said Dr Rema. Sanad said the charges against him were trumped up. "If I had pulled her sari, she would not have waited for a month to press charges against me," he said. He said that the press conference was held by the MSF but the principal chose to punish him.
However, he reiterated his allegation that on October 18, the principal forced him to hold her feet with both hands and apologise thrice. "When I apologised once, she made me do it thrice in front of my friends," he said. His friends took a photograph of it. The MSF made the photograph public on November 17.