The Kalakshetra Foundation in Chennai, on Monday, April 3, announced that Hari Padman, Assistant Professor, who has been accused of sexual harassment, has been suspended from the foundation with immediate effect. It also informed that the services of three faculty members - Sanjith Lal, Sai Krishnan, and Sreenath, will be dispensed. The decision comes days after several students of the foundation came out with allegations that the four faculty members sexually harassed multiple students. The state’s women’s commission told TNM that they had received around 90 complaints from the students, not only limited to sexual harassment.

The Board of Kalakshetra Foundation also informed that an independent inquiry committee consisting of retired Judge Shri K Kannan, former Directorate General of Police (DGP) of Tamil Nadu Letika Saran and Dr Shobha Varthaman has been formed to look into the sexual harassment complaints. The Internal Committee (IC), which Hari Padman was also a member of, has been reconstituted.

A new student counsellor and an Independent Advisory Committee is expected to be appointed immediately to "strengthen the administration of the Kalakshetra Foundation." The management also appealed to the students to attend the exams which were rescheduled due to the ongoing protests seeking action against the four teachers who were accused of sexual harassment.

Hari, who is a senior dance teacher of Kalakshetra’s Rukmini Devi College of Fine Arts, was arrested from north Chennai earlier on the morning of Monday, April 3, and produced before the Saidapet Metropolitan Magistrate's court later in the day. He is also the only accused against whom an FIR has been registered so far. The Adyar All Women police had booked him on March 31 under sections 354A (sexual harassment) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and section 4 (penalty for harassment of woman) of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Woman Act.