Hyderabad police on Sunday said they arrested two persons for alleged voyeurism at a private engineering college in Medchal after some female students accused the cooking staff of secretly filming them in their hostel washrooms.
The suspicion raised by the women sparked massive protests at the college on January 1 and 2, with a case being registered against seven individuals, including the two arrested persons, the principal, director and chairman of the college, news agency PTI reported.
The case at the Medchal police station was lodged on charges of voyeurism, abetment to commit a crime, and other relevant sections of the law, along with those under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) act.
Simply put, Voyeurism means an act of secretly watching individuals inside a private infrastructure, a washroom, trial room, etc., with indecent intent.
The two arrested individuals, both aged 20, were accused of peeping into the female students’ washrooms. Of the two, one of them works as a helper to a cook. Both of them have been sent to judicial custody, a police official said.
Police said that the two accused had easy access to the girls’ hostel washrooms as they were provided accommodation near the place, posing a serious threat to the safety and privacy of the minor victims.
In addition, the girls’ hostel wardens neglected the victims’ concerns with an intent to avoid escalation of the matter to the police or their parents, the police further said.
The principal, director, and chairman pressed the hostel wardens to control the situation and prevent exposure to protect the college’s reputation, showing no interest in reporting the matter to concerned authorities. This further encouraged and abetted the two accused to do voyeurism.
Further investigation into the case is underway, police said.
In a similar incident in Delhi last month, a man was arrested for hiding a mobile phone with its camera turned on inside women’s washroom in a government hospital in Dwarka.
The accused was reportedly a housekeeping staff of the hospital.
The act came to light when the phone suddenly rang, grabbing the attention of a woman who had gone to the washroom.
The accused confessed to the police that he had been carrying out this act of voyeurism for one month.
(with PTI inputs)