Andhra police arrest five college officials over alleged sexual harassment of minor girl who died by suicide

Visakhapatnam: Andhra Pradesh police have arrested five persons here in connection with the suicide of a minor girl student who made sexual harassment allegations against her college officials, an official has said.

The 17-year-old girl died after she jumped from a building in the intervening night of March 28 and 29, alleging that some unidentified persons had threatened to post her objectionable pictures on social media.

Police arrested five persons from Kommadi Chaitanya Polytechnic College in the port city. Those arrested were: N Shankar Rao, chemistry lab technician, Shankar Varma, head of college management, G Bhanu Praveen, principal, V Usha Rani, hostel warden and her husband V Pradeep Kumar, police said on Tuesday.

Visakhapatnam North assistant commissioner of police (ACP) B Sunil told PTI that the initial investigation pointed to Rao as the person who allegedly sexually harassed the deceased student.

"Shankar Rao is not admitting but in our investigation all the girls have pointed the finger at him. The girl's close friends have also said that. He will be interrogated further," said Sunil.

The arrested persons were booked under IPC Sections 305, 354 A, 354 C, 506, Section 12 of POCSO Act and other sections under the Prohibition of Ragging Act.

The ACP said that the five accused will be produced in front of a judge today.

Earlier, C Nagarani, Director, Technical Education, Andhra Pradesh said she has formed a committee to probe the incident and its report is awaited.

"A deeper enquiry is going on over the incident with some persons being summoned to the police station on a daily basis," Nagarani told PTI.

According to Nagarani, five of the student's seven teachers were women and the remaining two were men, including the principal of the college and an engineering drawing teacher.

Further, she said the lab assistants were also being enquired by the police.

Police have questioned the college management, the student's friends, roommates, parents, regular contacts and suspects.

The ACP did clarify that the girl was not raped, though a final post-mortem report is awaited.