Stephen's molestation row: Principal Thampu backs professor, says complaint a 'diabolic lie'

St Stephen's College principal Valson Thampu, accused of shielding a professor who allegedly molested a research scholar, has now come out in support of the accused, saying the complaint was a "diabolic" lie spread by another college teacher.

The girl had approached police in July last year, alleging she was molested by Satish Kumar, a Chemistry professor with 85 per cent disability. She had also accused Thampu of "shielding" the assistant professor when the matter was reported to him.

The allegations against Thampu, prompted certain sections of students, teachers and women rights group to demand his resignation. Accusing a teacher of trapping Kumar, Thampu said, "The diabolic lie that an 85 per cent disabled man, who cannot stand up on his own and needs a stick to move a step, could sexually assault a girl, could have been hatched only in your (the teacher's) perverse brain. That a person who gasps for breath after walking ten steps and stops to breathe can stalk and chase a girl along the street can occur only to your depraved mind."

"Only you could have created a situation in which an innocent, disabled man had to live fearing for his life, his house pelted with stones at night... His life threatened by anonymous callers," he said in a Facebook post, without naming the teacher. "Please shut down your dirty works department and cottage industry of manufacturing human misery. Do whatever you can to restore at least the shreds of self-respect and dignity you have snatched from a poor, disabled fellow teacher who has been held in high-esteem -- still is -- by all his students -- male and female -- alike," he added.

While Thampu had maintained in past that the allegations against him are part of a "constructed controversy" by a few "vested interests", he has expressed his support for the professor for the first time.