Kamal Ghorui
BENGALURU: A video of a faculty insulting a student from a minority community in PES University went viral on Friday, prompting the university to suspend the faculty. Muralidhar Deshpande, an adjunct faculty with the private university in Bengaluru was teaching the class on Thursday. As per the social media post, he called a student terrorist 13 times and made further insults in front of his classmates. As the video went viral, the university suspended him. Jawahar Doreswamy, chancellor, PES University said that they are verifying the authenticity of the video.According to accounts and a video recording from the classroom, Dr Muralidhar Deshpande reacted aggressively, allegedly calling the student a “terrorist” in front of the class.“The moment the class is going on, you come and disturb it. Sharm nahi aati tumko (do you feel no shame)? Useless fellow, terrorist — I will call you terrorist,” the professor is heard shouting in the video.“I thought today I will be very calm,” the professor added.“Kya kha ke aate ho, sharam nahi aati?” he is also heard saying.“Terrorist,” he repeats later in the video, which is marked by significant background noise.“All our classrooms lectures are recorded. We have asked our technical team to check the authenticity of the video. We are verifying to know the truth in the matter. Meanwhile, we have immediately kept the lecturer under suspension. Disciplinary committee will look through the evidence and proceedings have to be initiated against the faculty. Anything like this has never happened in the history of the institution,” he said.“We also have a policy that all faculty members will be trained in the beginning of the year on how to deal with situations inside the classrooms. Sometimes, there could be indiscipline in the classroom, and people can overreact. In this particular case, this faculty member is not full time faculty member, he is an adjunct faculty. We are looking at our protocol on what message is being given to adjunct faculty members. They will also be included in the trainings henceforth,” he said.“This is 100% unacceptable. The faculty has a PhD, it is surprising he has reacted this way. We don’t want to suppress anything. We will take necessary action,” he assured.However, no police complaint has been made yet. City police told TOI that after the video went viral, they approached the college authorities and students, asking them to file a police complaint so that they can take legal action against the professor.
Poll
Do you believe the actions of the faculty member were justified?
“However, the management asked us to wait for sometime. They said after holding an internal departmental enquiry, they have placed the professor under suspension. They told us that they will discuss before filing the police complaint,” a senior police officer said.
