Kolkata, March 11 -- Vice-chancellors (V-Cs) and former V-Cs from across Bengal have strongly condemned the actions of a group of students who attempted to prevent professor Omprakash Mishra from entering his office at the International Relations department of Jadavpur University on Monday. In a joint statement, they termed the students' actions as "unlawful" and "unethical".
The statement, signed by several prominent academicians, including Professor Ranjan Chakrabarti, Ashutosh Ghosh, Deb Narayan Bandopadhyay, Anuradha Mukhopadhyay, Rup Kumar Barman, Sauren Bandopadhyay, Manas Sanyal, Sibaji Pratim Basu and Mita Banerjee, expressed grave concern over the incident.
"We strongly condemn and unequivocally disapprove of the attempt made on March 10 by a small group of students to prevent Professor Mishra from entering his office at Jadavpur University," the statement read. "No one has the right to obstruct a teacher from fulfilling their academic responsibilities."
The group also raised concerns over the display of objectionable posters on campus, which they believed tarnished the reputation of the institution. In their view, the accusations levelled against Professor Mishra, a respected academic and researcher,were unfounded.
According to the V-Cs and former V-Cs, these baseless claims were made with the intent to harm his reputation. The academicians also called for the students involved to reflect on their actions and avoid such behaviour in the future.
Additionally, they referred to the violent incident on March 1, when the education minister Bratya Basu, Professor Mishra, and other teachers were physically assaulted by students and outsiders during a meeting of the West Bengal College and University Teachers' Association (WBCUPA) at the Open-Air Theatre on the JU campus, an incident they had alread
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.