U.P.: BBAU authorities see ‘red’ in help desk, suspend students with left leanings
Members of Students’ Federation of India (SFI) have given representations to their respective district officers in various districts and at a few universities condemning September 5 suspension of three of their members by the proctor of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (BBAU), Lucknow, which, according to them, is illegal as no reasons were cited by BBAU proctorial board for the action.
Three BBAU students Abhishek Kumar, Vinod Kumar and Abdul Wahab were suspended for setting up an admission help desk to help the newly admitted students. While Abdul Wahab is an MA (political science) third semester student, Vinod Kumar is pursuing BA (public administration) and Abhishek Kumar is a student of diploma in yoga certificate course.
Abhishek Kumar was served an indefinite suspension order while Abdul Wahab and Vinod Kumar were served an order by proctor Sanjay Kumar suspending them for seven days.
On Monday (September 18), BBAU proctor Sanjay Kumar issued a show-cause notice to Wahab asking him to submit his reply for his alleged misconduct and misbehaviour with the proctorial team when they repeatedly asked him to remove the help desk from the university. Wahab has been given 7 days’ time to submit reply failing which the university will be compelled to take its future course of action.
“On September 13 after the suspension period of Abdul Wahab and Vinod Kumar ended and when they were about to enter the university at around 10 am, they were stopped just outside the gates. Both have been served another suspension notice of 15 days and Abhishek has been served another suspension “till further order” as per the recommendation of the disciplinary committee of the university,” SFI members alleged.
The suspension notice was served without any prior information and has no mention of any reason for the suspension of the three students. According to SFI members, Vinod comes from a scheduled tribe community in Telangana and has allegedly been debarred from his hostel room. He has also allegedly been disallowed from entering the campus.
“Vinod has been staying outside for the past many days and has no money left now. He does not know the local language and says his survival is difficult if the new suspension is not revoked,” the SFI members claim.
Vinod has written to the President of India, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes and the tribal welfare minister of Telangana along with other university authorities like the vice chancellor, registrar, SC/ST cell and chairman of the disciplinary committee about this issue and the ‘illegal’ suspension he is facing.
The SFI accused the BBAU proctor of arbitrarily suspending students and making them suffer and mentally harassing them without giving any reason. SFI unit of BBAU demanded that the alleged illegal and arbitrary suspensions be revoked with immediate effect. It also demanded resignation of the proctor over the issue.
When contacted, BBAU spokesperson Rachna Gangwar said: “The permission to set up a help desk was given with a condition that no organisation, name or symbol should be used. The students violated the condition.” The students had reportedly decorated the desk with a red star symbolising their affiliation with the SFI.
Proctor Sanjay Kumar said the proctorial team had suspended them for a week only. “Later a disciplinary committee of the BBAU found evidence that they were engaged in activities that were against the code of conduct,” a university official said.
Madhur Garg of All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) also “blamed the proctor for unnecessarily harassing” SFI students without any reasons and demanded his suspension.
