After the dress code fiasco, students of Sri Sairam Engineering College now allege physical torture by college officials. Over the past few weeks, there has been a controversy over dress codes in colleges in Chennai. This controversy started with an alleged circular by Sri Sairam Engineering College which didn’t allow female students to wear leggings, high heels, short kurtas, patialas, and large watches or leave their hair loose among other stipulations.

Now, the former students of Sri Sairam Engineering College have taken the battle to the digital field, posting ‘confession’ videos on YouTube on Saturday where they allege that college officials beat them when they questioned the college rules. The video is titled “Confessions on Balu’s Human Rights Violations” and students from the 2003-07 batch from Sri Sairam Engineering College are featured in the video. While the content differed, the common target was, hostel supervisor.

Lokanathan, Dinesh Kumar, Pradeep Durairaj, Zaufer Sadiq and another former student have spoken out on the horrors behind the gates of Sri Sai Ram Engineering. They talk about being physically beaten with ‘lathis’ in ‘dark rooms’ by the hostel supervisor Balu. They even state that there are ‘dark rooms’ for this purpose on campus. Zaufer Sadiq, the former student who uploaded the video says that four feet long batons were used to beat students and seniors call this ‘black room treatment’.

“Floor supervisors are just rowdies hired by the management to ‘discipline’ students. Wearing white shirt and black pants, they would roam around the college,” Dinesh Kumar spoke about the sentries appointed on every floor as supervisor, all reporting to Balu.

“They are just goons. They would catch hold of girls’ hair and ask, ‘With this kind of face, you have come to study?’ (Or) they would ask girls why their clothes were tight, they would ask this in a demeaning way in front of all.”

“I once grew a small beard. Balu handed me a blade, not a razor and asked me to shave it. After I finished scraping my beard, with bruises all over, I was asked to pay Rs 200 as fine,” Zaufer Sadiq remembered a moment of torture under Balu.

Watch the Video Here:

Recently, students from the college protested against the new rules and regulations. These included the ban on talking to members of the opposite sex, dress codes and fines. Last week, about a 100 students staged a protest at the Chennai city police commissioner’s office demanding legal action and submitted a formal petition to a police officer.

There, they mentioned that Balu had not only harassed girl students, but also his women colleagues and girl students. A mechanical engineering student said: “Balu accessed the personal accounts of some of the students and abused them for posting certain comments on Facebook.

Anna University subsequently appointed a committee to look into the students complaints.