The College of Arts and Crafts campus continued to simmer on Wednesday even as teachers of the institution began voicing their dissent against the principal, who is in the eye of a storm following a series of allegations levelled by students.

An assistant professor of the college, who spoke to The Telegraph under cover of anonymity, accused principal Chandra Bhooshan Shriwastava of vitiating the atmosphere of the institution.

"Chandra Bhooshan is also an assistant professor (in the painting department). He doesn't keep anything transparent in the college - he doesn't consult teachers on whom to invite for lectures or in forming committees for fixing examination dates, which he is bound to do. The teachers come to know about these things only when everything has been decided. He indulges in groupism, insults teachers and instigates students against them, and threatens everybody," the assistant professor said.

Shriwastava could not be reached for comment despite calls to his mobile phone by The Telegraph. Neither did he reply to a text message from the paper.

The college, set up in 1939, is in the grip of an over-40-day agitation by students demanding Shriwastava's removal over alleged financial misconduct and "rude behaviour".

The agitation snowballed on Monday when Nitish Kumar, a final-year student of applied arts who had earlier accused Shriwastava of verbally abusing him over his caste and had lodged an FIR against the principal, allegedly attempted suicide in his hostel room. Police said the student is now out of danger.

The principal is also facing two FIRs - one filed by Nitish and another lodged against him in 2014 for allegedly visiting the college hostel in a drunken state.

Students asserted it was high time the state government stepped in to clean up the mess. Classes at the college have not been held since April 25.

The agitation intensified after April 21, when students objected to destruction of artworks and statues of Lord Buddha made by them by a contractor named Anshu, who has been hired for boundary wall work at the college. The contractor and his men allegedly thrashed the students and took them to the principal, who purportedly instigated them to beat the students further.

An FIR was lodged against eight students on charges of confining the principal in the college, indiscipline and obstructing work of the institution. The students currently stand suspended from the college.

Several artists, alumni and intellectuals of the city met at the campus on Wednesday and staged a daylong protest.

CPI-ML (Liberation) leader Dipankar Bhattacharya too joined the agitation on Wednesday and accused principal Shriwastava of running the college as his fiefdom owing to his proximity to a senior bureaucrat.