An employee at an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay hostel canteen was arrested on Sunday night after he was caught peeping into a bathroom, police said and added they were ascertaining allegations of women students that the accused also shot their videos.
A student raised an alarm after she noticed the employee peeping into the bathroom through window slits. “The canteen...was closed on Sunday for pest control work but workers were on the hostel premises during that time. The bathrooms in some wings of the hostel building have windows facing a platform-like area with pipes from the ground floor,” said IIT Bombay students in a statement.
An IIT Bombay spokesperson said the alertness of hotel residents led to the employee’s arrest. “There was an attempt to violate the personal space of women residents...by climbing a pipe duct.” The spokesperson said the institute is unaware of any footage being found on the phones confiscated from the accused.
A police officer said their initial investigations shows there was no recording involved. “An FIR [First Information Report] has been registered and the accused has been arrested. Further questioning is underway.”
Students have demanded heightened security measures on the campus and changes, especially in the design of the bathrooms, to ensure such incidents are not repeated even as the institute has shut down the canteen.
{{/usCountry}}Students have demanded heightened security measures on the campus and changes, especially in the design of the bathrooms, to ensure such incidents are not repeated even as the institute has shut down the canteen.
{{/usCountry}}“The canteen...will reopen only if staffed exclusively by women. Gaps in the ducts, which may have been used by the suspect, have been closed. We are in discussions with our students to see what other additional steps we can take to heighten security,” said the spokesperson.
The incident came to light amid protests on the Chandigarh University campus in Mohali over the weekend allegedly over rumours that a hostel resident allegedly recorded objectionable videos of several students. A woman, who appeared to have shared a video of herself with a friend in Himachal Pradesh, was arrested as police said no other objectionable videos were found.
In the first week of September, a canteen employee at a hostel at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras was arrested for assaulting a woman student.