The civic authorities removed it two months after Mayor Arya S Rajendran promised to build a gender-neutral bus stand in the same place at Sreekaryam near the Government College of Engineering-Trivandrum (CET) in Thiruvananthapuram.
The mayor made a visit to the area after the photographs of a “sit-on-lap" protest went viral. The students reportedly protested the splitting of the bench by sitting on one another's laps.
The mayor had said in a post later that the manner in which the bench was cut into three was not only "inappropriate" but also "unbecoming of a progressive society" like that of Kerala.
Arya S Rajendran further said the state government had not issued any ban on girls and boys sitting together. She said those who still believe in moral policing were still living in ancient times.
The ruling CPI(M)'s youth wing DYFI had also said breaking the bench in the bus stand was unacceptable.
