BENGALURU: A video of a PES University faculty member insulting a student from a minority community has gone viral. The university suspended the professor, who later issued a written apology “for not upholding classroom decorum”. According to a social media post, the professor called the student “terrorist” 13 times in a fit of rage. “While the class is on, you come and disturb everyone. Sharm nahi aati tumko (aren’t you ashamed)? Useless fellow, terrorist. Yes, I’ll call you a ‘terrorist’,” the professor is heard shouting in the viral video clip. There is still no clarity on what triggered the act, and no police complaint has been filed by either the student concerned or the university. Police, though, have registered a suo motu criminal case against the professor. Muralidhar Deshpande, an adjunct faculty member with the Bengaluru-based private university, was teaching supply chain analytics to the BBA second year class on March 24 when the incident happened. While some university sources said he was annoyed after a student repeatedly sought permission to leave the classroom, others said he lost his temper over a noisy class.The student reported the incident to the department chairperson the same day, who visited the classroom and asked the professor what had happened.When the professor continued to behave inappropriately, the chairperson told him to leave midway through a lecture, sources said. As the video went viral, the university suspended him. Jawahar Doreswamy, chancellor, PES University, said the varsity authorities were still verifying the authenticity of the video. “This is unacceptable. The faculty holds a PhD. We don’t want to suppress anything. We will take necessary action,” the chancellor said. “All our lectures are recorded. We have asked our technical team to check authenticity of the video. We are trying to get to the truth. Meanwhile, we have kept the lecturer under suspension. Disciplinary committee will check evidence before initiating further action against him,” Doreswamy said. “All our faculty members are trained on how to deal with situations in classrooms. At times, there can be disciplinary issues and people can overreact. We are looking at our protocol on what briefings were given to adjunct faculty members,” he added. “I would like to clarify that the word used was not directed at any [specific] student, but I understand and acknowledge that it was inappropriate,” the lecturer said in his apology. Police told TOI they approached college authorities and students, asking them to file a complaint for them to initiate legal action against the lecturer. “The university management, though, told us to wait for a while,” a senior police officer said. Girinagar police have registered a suo motu criminal case against the professor under various provisions of BNS, including Section 299, which deals with deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious sentiments. A senior officer from Girinagar police station said a notice will soon be issued to the professor as part of investigation.
