Students of CMR College of Pharmacy in Medchal have accused the principal Uma Maheshwar Rao for allegedly pressurising and abusing the students over academics. Refuting the charges, the principal said that several students did not have 75% of attendance due to which the management had to tighten norms.

Dozens of students protested in front of the college on Friday evening demanding termination of the principal. In a written complaint submitted to the chairman of Telangana State Council of Higher Education, the students have stated that “All the students of the pharmaceutical branch have constantly been abused and pressurized by him. The management is harassing the students by telling that we will not be allowed to appear for our internals,” reads the letter.

Students have also highlighted suicide of Bhargav Naidu, a third year student of the college who ended life at the Nampally railway track in November last year. While Rao was re-appointed as the principal of the department in February this year, students expressed their dissent over the same. “At first, the management adhered to our request. However, to our utter surprise, within the next two months, he was again re-appointed as our principal,” reads the letter attached with signatures of dozens of students.

Refuting the accusations, Rao said that despite signing multiple undertakings with the college management stating that they would adhere to the attendance norm set by the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, students failed to do so. “We gave several warnings to the students to have minimum 75% of attendance. However, many failed to attend classes. Only on medical grounds we allow students to have attendance 65%. But several students of third year have attendance even lower than 63%,” said Rao.

Officials of TSCHE are now looking into the matter. “We have received the complaint filed by the students. We will investigate into the matter soon,” said an official of TSCHE.