The vice-chancellor of an Uttar Pradesh university has allegedly promised his students protection if they murder somebody.

“Agar tum Purvanchal Vishwavidyalay ke chhatra ho to kisi se jhagra karke mere samne rotey huey mat ana. Haan, agar peetke ya fir hatya karke ayeh toh main dekh lunga,” a person resembling Raja Ram Yadav, vice-chancellor of Veer Bahadur Singh Purvanchal University in Jaunpur, appears to say in a video that went viral on Saturday.

A translation: “If you are a student of Purvanchal University, never come to me weeping after a fight. But if you come to me after beating or even killing someone, I’ll take care of it.”

The context of the comment remains unclear but Yadav is seen ending his remarks with a smile.

Yadav’s mobile was switched off. “Sir (Yadav) stays in Delhi and Mumbai during holidays and doesn’t talk to anyone when out of town,” a teacher from the university said on the condition of anonymity. “You can talk to him after he returns on January 2.”

A university source said Yadav had addressed students of Satyadev Degree College and Ram Manohar Lohia Degree College in Ghazipur at a common venue two days ago. The subject of his speech was “Challenges in Higher Education”.

Some 350 colleges in eastern Uttar Pradesh are affiliated to the state-run Purvanchal University.

In the video, the voice further says that students should have the courage to carve a path for themselves from the rocks of mountains.

Yadav, 61, is known to have RSS links. He has opened a Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Institute in the university for social science studies and research on “ekatma manavavad” or integral humanism, a concept developed by the late Upadhyay, a Sangh parivar theorist. Yadav did his PhD in the physics of “ultrasonic attenuation”, sources said.