A West Bengal Minority Commission (WBMC) team on Tuesday recommended that the head of Jadavpur University’s English department be barred from campus pending a probe into allegations that invigilators harassed two students from a particular community during an examination.
The commission team visited the campus to investigate the complaints.
WBMC chairman Ahmed Hasan Imran said, “If the department head is not barred while the probe continues, she could influence the investigation. The university needs to send a clear message that it does not tolerate religious profiling. Failure to act could send the wrong message about JU, which respects religious coexistence.”
The WBMC is a state body under the state’s minority affairs and madrasah education department, tasked with protecting minority rights.
On Monday, the university constituted a three-member committee to probe the allegations. The committee has been asked to file its report within a month.
A professor of JU’s English department said it was not clear why the state commission did not wait for the three-member committee’s report before coming up with its own recommendation against the departmental head.
The minority commission made the recommendations to the vice-chancellor.
Vice-chancellor Chiranjib Bhattacharjee said a decision on any recommendation from the minority commission would be taken following a “discussion with the stakeholders”.
“JU does not believe in religious profiling. This is the hallmark of JU. Whatever has happened is a stray incident,” he told reporters.
Saswati Halder, head of the English department, called the commission’s recommendation “extremely unfair and unfortunate,” noting that she had not been asked for her side.
She said, “I can understand that I hurt the religious sentiments of the students, and I have apologised to them. But I am not sorry for performing my duties as the head
of the department and presiding officer of the examination.”
Asked why the state commission jumped to a conclusion before the completion of a formal probe, Hasan said: “The commission, which has judicial power, thinks that the two students had been subjected to religious profiling and therefore action should be taken against the teacher. We spoke to the students. They are traumatised following what had happened.”
A section of students in the English department had filed a complaint to the VC alleging that two students were targeted and harassed in the name of strict invigilation
during the third-semester exams in the third week of December.
The state commission took suo motu cognisance of the allegations and visited JU.