S Kripali, a former student who took up the sexual harassment issue in her Instagram post, told DT Next that apart from attending online classes with only a towel wrapped around his naked body, G Rajagopalan, the commerce teacher at Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan, KK Nagar, also sent inappropriate WhatsApp messages and made remarks about the girl students’ photos. “He also made comments about their physical appearance and asked one student to go out to the movies with him,” she said.

Some of the allegations made against the teacher, who take classes for commerce stream, include touching students inappropriately during physical sessions, making ‘nasty’ comments on girl students’ attire besides body-shaming some students regularly. Students claimed that they have repeatedly complained to the school management and no action was taken.

One of the affected students, seeking anonymity, said that the teacher even used to threaten each of his students not to disclose his personnel comments to their parents or friends. “He would threaten to reduce our marks in exams if any of the student lodges complain against him.” The student also confirmed that the teacher often attends online classes wearing shorts.

Rajagopalan, allegedly had also been sending his photograph to some students and forced them to send their pictures, which he would later comment on. Kripali claimed, “Many of my batchmates and juniors have been harassed by Rajagopalan. It got out of hand when he recently asked one of my friends whether she wanted to go to a movie with him and sent a link to pornographic content in a class group. Even though I went and complained to the dean, no action was taken against him. So, a group of us has decided to seek legal action.” 

Releasing snapshots of the conversations with some of the current students on her Instagram page, Kripali sought others, who faced similar harassment, to get in touch with her. The students claimed that they had made several complaints to the management against Rajagopalan but no action had been taken.