Calcutta University vice-chancellor Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee on Wednesday alleged that she was being “harassed” with messages and social media posts that were “obscene and misogynistic” because of the university’s “collective decision” to hold exams offline.
CU’s syndicate, the university’s highest decision-making body, had last Friday decided to hold offline exams at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
“Now to identify a Vice-Chancellor for a collective decision and to hurl specific abuses at her will not be condoned,” VC Chakravarti Banerjee said in a text message to The Telegraph.
She wrote: “Some of the messages/social media posts that are circulating in the public domain and/or coming to me from/on behalf of some persons who are against the university’s collective and consensual decision to conduct examinations offline, are nothing but violent and hateful, and some of them are also obscene and misogynistic. I condemn such illegal and unethical and foul tactics.”
“This decision was taken by all members of all faculty councils, all chairpersons of UG Board of Studies and most of the principals,” she said.
“I am being harassed with a string of messages and social media posts.”
She put out the statement on a day the university’s pro-VC (academic) Ashis Chatterjee contacted the principal of Gurudas College regarding a Facebook post allegedly made by a student, in which the VC was threatened with physical assault for the decision to conduct exams offline.
Principal Mousumi Chatterjee said the student had claimed that his profile had been hacked.
A CU official said the syndicate had also asked the principals of all affiliated colleges to arrange special classes to complete the syllabi.
The Trinamul Congress Chhatra Parishad had in the middle of May written to education minister Bratya Basu demanding online exams.
They cited incomplete syllabus as the reason for their demand.
