He further claimed that "the girl wasn't sure she wanted to treat it as a sexual harassment complaint".
"It wasn't for me but for the victim to approach the police over the issue. I could have raised it with the college's Internal Complaints Committee (ICC), which I duly did," he said, responding to queries why the matter wasn't reported to police when he first got the complaint.
"Life is not above law. The girl wasn't sure she wanted to treat it as a sexual harassment complaint. If I would have reported it to police, it would have been breach of trust," he added.
"I shall make no comments on the merit of the contents and how cleverly they have been manipulated, insofar as a police investigation into the case is in progress but they have being mischievously edited," he said.
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The research scholar had approached police on June 19 alleging that she was molested by Satish Kumar, an assistant professor of Chemistry Department, and that Thampu had tried to shield the accused when the matter was reported to him.
Women organisations today came up in arms against Thampu for "mishandling" the issue.
"We demand immediate reassigning of the PhD supervisor and initiation of an external inquiry into the principal's role and institutional failure to address such cases," several women organisations, including All India Democratic Women's Association, Centre for Struggling Women, Saheli and All India Progressive Women Association, said in a joint statement.
Meanwhile, the HRD Ministry today asked UGC to ensure that the college's ICC completes the enquiry "expeditiously" and "impartially".