BENGALURU: Three months after the Azim Premji University campus in Bengaluru was vandalised allegedly by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the university administration has sent an email to a girl student, informing her that she has been suspended for two years. Protesting against this, over 40 students gathered on the campus and raised slogans.
The email listed these reasons for her suspension, including: Defiance of institutional processes and guidelines, misrepresenting facts, violating the university code of conduct and failure to follow university’s instructions for de-escalating a volatile situation during an extraordinary event on campus.
A protesting student said, “We raised slogans against the administration, demanding that the unjust suspension be revoked. We later marched to the registrar’s office. But he did not meet us and remained in his office, employing security guards to ensure students could not meet him.
Members of the Student Affairs Committee met the students outside the office and kept insisting that students must first send emails and obtain prior permission before seeking audience with the registrar. Students were also threatened with disciplinary action for gathering outside the office, claiming that their presence constituted disruption of the workplace.”
The students council stated that the decision was based on the recommendations of a Special Disciplinary Committee that was set up to inquire into the events of February 24, when ABVP activists forcefully entered the campus and vandalised the premises for organising a discussion on Kunan Poshpora incident on the campus.
“These claims made for the suspension are vague and undefined at best, and lack context or explanation for the decision. The university claims that the Special Disciplinary Committee arrived at this decision after their investigation. However, no report of this investigation has been sent to the suspended student. A two-year suspension subject to future ‘review’ before re-admission is equivalent to expulsion,” it added.
“Other students who had been called by the Special Disciplinary Committee also received threatening emails, stating that they are being let off with a warning, and future non-compliance with the university’s Code of Conduct would invite strict action,” the statement read.
The students criticised the very constitution of the Special Disciplinary Committee as concerning. “The creation of a ‘Disciplinary Committee’ in response to an event where student safety was threatened assumes students to be responsible for an external attack. This assumption of guilt and need for ‘disciplining’ before any investigation was even conducted, is undemocratic and concerning,” they said.
Students have also initiated a signature campaign in solidarity across the student body.
