Scottish Church College suspended one of its contractual teachers from service on Thursday after a second-year student accused him of harassment.

On Thursday, a group of students gathered in front of the college, demanding justice for the complainant.

Principal Madhumanjari Mandal said in a notice: “With regard to the complaint received from a student against a faculty member, the authority suspends the concerned teacher from the service in the college with immediate effect till the governing body takes further decision.”

A teacher at the college said the faculty member who has been suspended is a state-appointed contractual teacher (SACT) and stands accused of sending lewd texts to a student.

“The alleged harassment happened several months ago. But the student lodged a formal complaint on Wednesday, after which the principal suspended the contractual teacher who has been working in the physical education department since 2002,” the teacher said.

Several students said that though the college authorities had known about the incident since July, they waited till a formal complaint was lodged before taking action.

“When we went to the principal she told us that she had known about the complaint since July, when the second-year classes started. The principal should have realised that it might not be possible for the girl to gather the courage to complain. The principal being a woman should have acted spontaneously,” said a third-year student and one of the protesters.

Another student said the second-year student had verbally informed the principal about the harassment.

“We have seen some of the texts the complainant received from the accused,” the student said.

Asked about the allegation that she was sitting on a verbal complaint, principal Mandal told The Telegraph in a text message: “She did not lodge any complaint. Yesterday (Wednesday) she lodged the complaint.”

Calls from this newspaper to the accused teacher went unanswered.