IIMC professor resigns, says targeted by government

In yet another controversy at the IIMC here, a senior faculty member resigned on Friday alleging that he was “targeted” by the I&B ministry for supporting the protests over dalit student Rohith Vemula’s suicide, the JNU controversy and the FTII row.

Amit Sengupta, an associate professor in the department of English journalism, quit after an order was issued transferring him to the media school’s campus in Orissa’s Dhenkanal district, which he slammed as a “political decision.”

“I have been targeted because I supported the solidarity protest for Rohith Vemula in the campus, organised independently by students of IIMC in which other faculty members too participated... I have been targeted also because I supported the JNU and FTII students,” Mr Sengupta wrote in his resignation letter.

Refuting allegations of politically targeting the IIMC faculty, a senior information and broadcasting ministry official claimed that certain acts of Mr Sengupta suggesting “indiscipline” had come to the notice of the authorities including his attempts to “politicise” the campus through posts on social media.

However, the official also added that Mr Sengupta’s services had only been “temporarily” placed in Dhenkanal in view of shortage of faculty on that campus.

“I am proud of standing up for Rohith Vemula and will continue to do so in the days to come. This is my constitutional right. I think grave injustice has been done to him and the students of Hyderabad Central University. I will always stand and fight for Dalit rights. I think both the struggles (JNU and FTII) are glorious and the country will enrich itself with the great leap of imagination and the brilliant content of the peaceful, democratic debate the students and faculty of these great institutions have generated,” Mr Sengupta, a former journalist, said.

Mr Sengupta said that it was an “honour” for him as a former JNUSU president to address the open air gathering of faculty and students of JNU and that he was proud being part of the “great intellectual and political tradition” of JNU.