IIT-Guwahati professor held on rape charge; students to take out protest march today

The students of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Guwahati will on Wednesday take out a protest march in the wake of the arrest of the dean of academic affairs for allegedly raping an office assistant.

IIT-Guwahati professor held on rape charge; students to take out protest march today

Guwahati: The students of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Guwahati will on Wednesday take out a protest march in the wake of the arrest of the dean of academic affairs for allegedly raping an office assistant.

"A case was registered against IIT Guwahati Professor Alok Kumar Ghosal at the Panbazar Women police station here... He was brought to the police station for examination last night (Monday) and now he has been arrested," Guwahati City Senior Superintendent of Police AP Tiwari told reporters on Tuesday here.

"We got some evidence and found that there is a need to arrest him for proper investigation," added Tiwari.

The case against the dean has been registered under Section 376(2)(b) of IPC (public servant taking advantage of his official position and committing rape on a woman).

An IIT-G official, speaking on the development, said, "A case was registered by an office assistant against our Dean, Professor Ghosal of the Chemical Engineering Department. The police had come yesterday to the IIT-G campus with a notice but as he was not present, the institute's authority accepted it and assured it would be handed to him."

"Before the notice could be handed to Professor Ghosal, we learnt that the police had taken him into custody outside the campus. According to the SSP, today Prof Ghosal has been arrested. The assistant made the accusation 11 days after the alleged event," the official said without mentioning the date when the complaint was made.

Prof Ghosal was later produced before a local court which remanded him to judicial custody.

"As he confessed to everything before production in court, police custody was not required today. If we feel the requirement, will move the court," Tiwari said.

"After careful examination of facts and witnesses, we had called him and started interrogation with evidence," he said.

Asked if medical tests have been done, the SSP said, "Everything has been done and being done for qualitative investigation".

(With PTI inputs)

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