A student of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Palakkad was attacked by an unidentified person on the Kanjikode campus on Monday night.
Aswini Kannan, a fourth-year BTech Data Science student from Salem, Tamil Nadu, sustained an injury on her forehead when she was struck with a wooden plank while walking from her hostel to the dining hall.
She was admitted to a hospital in Coimbatore. IIT officials said she had passed the critical stage and was stable. The student was unable to identify her attacker.
Following the incident, IIT students staged a protest demanding the immediate arrest of the assailant and enhanced campus security. They alleged that similar assaults had occurred earlier as well.
The IIT authorities, however, maintained that this was the first such incident on campus and said the attacker was suspected to be an insider.
The police have launched an investigation, collected CCTV footage from various parts of the campus, and recorded the student’s statement. However, there was no surveillance camera at the exact location of the attack.
Published – February 24, 2026 08:01 pm IST
