Kerala techie wearing burqa arrested for entering mall's ladies washroom, recording video
Kochi, Aug 17: Police here on Wednesday arrested a 23-year-old male IT professional for allegedly entering a women's washroom wearing a burqa in a popular mall and recording their videos on his mobile phone.
The accused, Abhimanyu, a B.Tech graduate, was booked for the offences under sections 354(C) (Voyeurism) and 419 (Impersonation) of the IPC and Section 66 E of the Information Technology Act on the same day, police said.
He was then produced before a local court which remanded the accused to 14 days in judicial custody, an officer of Kalamassery police station said.
The incident occurred on Wednesday at Lulu Mall here. The accused, who works in a leading IT firm based at the Infopark here, wore a burqa and entered a women's washroom and placed his mobile in there, police said.
He put his phone in a small cardboard box, put a hole in it for the camera to record visuals and stuck it to the door of the washroom, according to the police.
After placing the camera, the suspect came out from there and stood in front of the main door of the washroom, police said.
Noting his suspicious behaviour, the mall's security personnel informed the police who reached the spot and questioned the accused, the officer said.
Questioning revealed that he had disguised himself as a woman and that he was recording the scenes in the washroom on his mobile phone, police said.
Subsequently, the burqa and the mobile phone of the accused were seized and he was taken into custody.
The officer said investigations were on to find out if the accused had carried out such acts in the past anywhere else.
A young man was arrested for trying to place a camera in the washroom of #LuluMall in #Kochi, #Kerala.#Abhimanyu, a native of #Payyannur, was arrested. The available information is that the person who tried to install the camera is an employee of #Infopark, Kochi.
— Hate Detector 🔍 (@HateDetectors) August 17, 2023
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Student found dead in hostel room in IIT Kharagpur
Kolkata (PTI): A 22-year-old M Tech student was found dead in his hostel room in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, the second such incident reported on the campus within a span of 10 days.
The student, identified as Soham Haldar, was found hanging from the ceiling of his hostel room on Tuesday and he was immediately taken to the institute hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead, an IIT Kharagpur official said.
Haldar, a dual-degree student in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, was a boarder of the Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Hall of Residence on the campus.
Police from the Kharagpur Town police station have initiated a probe into the incident as preliminary findings indicated that it could be a case of suicide, though the exact cause of death will be ascertained following the post-mortem examination, the official said.
In a statement, the institute expressed deep grief over the student's death and said a detailed inquiry has been initiated.
The authorities have informed the family and are extending all possible assistance to them, it added.
Director Suman Chakraborty told PTI that the institute will strengthen the mechanism to identify stressed-out and depressed students and take follow-up steps to address their issues.
The grief-stricken parents of the student, who hailed from Barasat in North 24 Parganas district, have come to the campus and the authorities will speak to them, he said.
"Haldar's friends, faculty and staffers also could not gauge any stress or anxiety in him. But we need to enable students suffering from anxiety and extreme stress to open up their minds and do everything needed to prevent such incidents," he said.
Investigators are also scrutinising CCTV footage from the hostel premises to piece together the sequence of events leading to the incident.
The incident comes close on the heels of another student's death reported on April 18, when 21-year-old Jaibir Singh Dodia, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student from Ahmedabad, allegedly died after jumping from the eighth floor of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hall of Residence. That case is also under investigation.
The back-to-back incidents have once again brought the issue of mental health and student support systems at the institute into focus, especially in view of several such cases reported last year.
