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Row escalates over harassment of Aliah Univ V-C by former TMC student leader
Former TMC student leader Giyasuddin Mondal had confronted vice-chancellor Mahammad Ali on April 1 at the university’s main campus in Kolkata’s New Town
A day after Giyasuddin Mondal, a former Trinamool Congress (TMC) student leader at Kolkata’s Aliah University, was arrested on charges of insulting and threatening to kill the vice-chancellor on April 1, allegations of corruption and involvement of some top TMC leaders surfaced on Monday, with students of the university launching an indefinite hunger strike, demanding action against the guilty.
Mondal had confronted vice-chancellor Mahammad Ali on April 1 at the university’s main campus in Kolkata’s New Town. A video showing Ali facing Mondal and a group of people in his office surfaced on social media on Saturday and drew widespread outrage.
Demanding the arrest of the 20-odd youths who accompanied Mondal on April 1, the students announced an indefinite hunger strike. “We will not stop the agitation till Mondal’s associates are arrested,” said Masudur Rehman, a student.
The V-C said the experience was too bitter for him to continue and he might return to Jadavpur University where he used to teach chemistry.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has alleged that Ali was targeted because he opposed the misuse of central funds received by the university and an alleged move to transfer part of the land at the Kolkata campus in the Park Circus area to a business group for building a hospital.
Mondal was charged by the Techno City police station under several sections of the Indian Penal Code.
While a court remanded Mondal to police custody for a week on Monday, agitated students of the university demanded a probe into the alleged involvement of some TMC leaders and ministers.
The students released audio clips of several purported phone conversations in which the names of cabinet minister and Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim, minority affairs and madrasah department minister Ghulam Rabbani and Rajya Sabha member Nadimul Haque were mentioned. HT could not verify the authenticity of these clips.
Run by the department of minority affairs and madrasah education, Aliah University was set up in 2008.
In one of the audio clips, former Aliah University student Saheb Ali was purportedly heard telling current student Jewel Rana that the vice-chancellor had been asked to leave the university by top TMC leaders. The April 1 incident was planned so that the he would resign out of humiliation, the former student alleged.
He also mentioned that a man named Jim Nawaz was controlling the politics at the university, and the latter was in touch with minister Hakim.
While Rabbani claimed the audio tapes were fake, Hakim admitted that he knows Jim Nawaz.
“Jim Nawaz is not a TMC member. He advises us on issues related to minority affairs. I met him during the election campaign. He is just an advisor among many,” Hakim told the media, but denied any link with the April 1 incident. “What happened is condemnable. Nobody can accept it,” he said.
Haque could not be contacted despite several efforts.
“The vice-chancellor is being pressured to leave because he opposed a move to hand over land at the Park Circus campus for construction of a private hospital. He also stopped defalcation of central funds meant for development of the university,” said West Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee accused the BJP of making false accusations. She alleged that the video, showing the vice-chancellor being threatened, was made viral on social media with the sole objective to target her party.
“A lot of stories are concocted these days. The BJP is a master in this field and it has found a partner in the CPI(M). Someone used abusive language and he has been arrested. The issue is being blown out of proportion by a section of the media,” Banerjee said during a press conference at the state secretariat.
Giyasuddin Mondal, whose family lives in the Kalna area of East Burdwan district, took admission in the engineering department in 2013 but never completed the course, officers at Techno City police station said. Mondal, however, became general secretary of the TMC-controlled students union at the university.
In 2017, Mondal was accused of harassing the then vice-chancellor Abu Taleb Khan and harassing the current vice-chancellor in 2018 as well. He was expelled in 2018 on charges of hooliganism and embezzling money from the university canteen. He was arrested and remanded in police custody for 10 days.
“He was expelled from the TMC students’ front as well. Mondal has no link with the TMC since 2018. Our workers rescued the vice-chancellor on April 1. Our party does not support hooliganism,” said Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCP) state president Trinankur Bhattacharya.
The BJP state president tweeted some photographs in which Bhattacharya could be seen sitting with Mondal. The TMCP said the photographs were taken years ago.
