Amid the ongoing protests and hunger strike on campus, it has come to light that The English Foreign Language University (EFLU), Hyderabad, issued show cause notices to several students for allegedly “inciting violence” and "disrupting the normal academic and administrative functioning of the University". The students informed that on October 31, five students were given the notice while after October 31, another four received it.
These notices have been issued in relation to a discussion on Palestine: Perspectives on Literary Resistance proposed by the students on October 18 which was later cancelled by the students themselves and disallowed by the university authorities.
In a show cause notice issued to one such student, who requested anonymity, which EdexLive has a copy of, the university said that the programme was disallowed due to its singular perspectives on a raging current issue with national and international ramifications.
The notice issued by the university dated October 31, stated, “(The student) expressed her discontent at the timely intervention of the University Administration intimating the Police for appropriate intervention to dissuade the programme titled "Discussion on Palestine" in the statement of Muslim Student Federation (MSF) EFLU, which has the potential of promoting hate speeches on the University Campus intending to "lead to violence", and "arousing communal feeling or creating disharmony among students", which will spread to other parts of the State and society, in general”
It further added that the student schemed with others to intimidate and to cause disturbance by conducting an unauthorised programme in the New Academic Block (NAB) on the university campus, in wilful defiance of the university's instruction for obtaining prior permission from the university.
Students of EFLU have informed that nine students from the institute have received show cause notices from the university authorities so far.
The background
To recall, Proctor of EFLU Prof T Samson, had lodged complaints against a group of 11 students with the Osmania Police after the EFLU administration disallowed a discussion on Palestine, planned by the said student group while students alleged that the administration was deviating from the issue of the sexual assault of a student on campus recently.
The issue has come up amidst the ongoing protest against the same sexual harassment case on the campus. Today, November 6, the students launched an indefinite hunger strike against the administration which was joined by the students of Hyderabad Central University (HCU) and Osmania University as well.
