Two NIFT Officials Booked For Caste Discrimination In Chennai

Caste Discrimination In NIFT: Further, the FIR also said that the victim was targeted by the accused from September 2020 to March 2022.

NIFT, Chennai | Credit: NIFT Website

Chennai: Two top officials of National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), a premier institute offering fashion education, were booked for practicing caste-based discrimination against a senior official from a Dalit community on Wednesday. The FIR was filed on May 8 based on the complaint of K Ilanchezhian, a senior assistant director of NIFT under the Union Textiles Ministry.

The action was taken on Wednesday since Ilanchezhian got access to the copy of the complaint from the police website on Tuesday.

According to a report on The New Indian Express, the FIR said, the director of the institute Anitha Mabel Manohar humiliated the victim by shifting his office from the main building to a room in the student's hostel. She also allotted the office space to a junior researcher who belonged to a dominant case.

Following this, Illanchezhian was informed about the discrimination of the higher-ups in Delhi and they ordered to shift him back to his room. However, Anitha reportedly refused to follow the order and issued another order to ensure that he stayed in the hostel, said the report.

Apart from Anitha, the FIR has also named the joint director of the institute B Narasimhan. Both of the officials of NIFT have been booked under various sections of SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. 

Further, the FIR also said that the victim was targeted by the accused from September 2020 to March 2022.

In 2020, Anitha also reportedly filed a complaint against Ilanchezhian with Internal Complaints Committee. However, the ICC in February 2022 had communicated to Anitha that the complaint does not fall under their purview.