New Delhi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said he is appalled at the extreme step that the Delhi University took in suspending PhD scholar Lokesh Chugh for his participation in the showing of the banned BBC documentary on the university campus on January 27. The scholar has been debarred from taking any university, college or departmental examination for a year. Shashi Tharoor said as an alumnus of the university, he is appalled by the shocking decision. “To suspend a student for watching a documentary in a democracy is a disgrace and a betrayal of everything a university should stand for. Shame!” the Congress MP tweeted.
Lokesh Chugh is the national secretary of the Congress-affiliated National Students’ Union of India. Apart from Lokesh, Ravinder from the law faculty has also been suspended.
The controversial documentary on Gujarat riots — India: The Modi Question, for which BBC came under fire — was screened at Delhi University amid row over the ban on the documentary. NSUI and Bhim Army Student Federation screened the documentary. The university set a committee to probe the incident and the committee recommended punishment for eight students. Two of the eight have been suspended for a year and the rest gave been given less strict punishment.
The BBC documentary has been at the centre of a huge political controversy as it criticised Narendra Modi’s role in the Gujarat riots. The Assam government on Tuesday adopted a resolution in the assembly condemning the documentary and said it was aimed at maligning India’s gowing international standing and “foment domestic instability”.
