BESU head biased in favour of SFI: Teachers

Raising a volley of allegations against the Vice-Chancellor, the teachers belonging to the Bengal Engineering and Science University Teachers Association (BESUTA) claimed that the university administration is biased towards the SFI. “We are concerned over the academic atmosphere of the institution which has been on the boil since the past four years,” said Partha Pratim Chattopadhyay, secretary of BESUTA.

The Vice-Chancellor’s political bias to strengthen the students union of the ruling party is creating the problem, he alleged. “Since 2006, there have been no students’ body elections. And if elections are held the authorities know for sure that the SFI will lose. That is why there were no elections,” he added.

The teachers said that more than 200 members of BESUTA will boycott the mid-semester examination.

“No one has the permission to view the answer scripts prior to the examiners but the university authorities are claiming that the students who have submitted blank papers or have written some slogans will be punished,” said Chattopadhyay. The teachers’ union demanded the withdrawal of criminal charges against students and the removal of a police picketing at the university premises by Sunday.

They also critical of the role of police in the unrest that started on March 19. They claimed that outsiders, mostly supporters of the SFI, thrashed IC students in front of the main gate of the university.

The teachers are planning to meet the Governor, who is the Chancellor of the university, and would ask the removal of the V-C. The registrar of the university, Biman Bandopadhyay, said that the authorities are trying to bring normalcy as quickly as possible.

“We will remove the police picketing but not before examinations get over by April 1,” he said, adding that the hostel superintendents had requested us for police protection.

The registrar claimed that in spite of the non-cooperation of a teacher’s organisation, some teachers are helping us conduct examinations.

Meanwhile, students of BESU continued their protests at Metro Channel.