Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru
Bengaluru, Mar 28: A faculty member at PES University was suspended after a video of him allegedly insulting a student from a minority community in a classroom went viral on Friday, triggering outrage.
The faculty member, identified as Dr Muralidhar Deshpande, an adjunct lecturer at the private university, was teaching a class on Thursday when the incident occurred. As per social media posts and video footage, he allegedly called a student a “terrorist” multiple times—reportedly 13 times—and made further insulting remarks in front of classmates.
According to accounts and a video recording from the classroom, Dr Deshpande reacted aggressively, allegedly calling the student a “terrorist” in front of the class.
In the video, he is heard shouting, “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.”
“I thought today I will be very calm,” the professor is also heard saying. “Kya kha ke aate ho, sharam nahi aati?” he adds, before repeating “terrorist” again amid significant background noise.
Following the video going viral, the university placed him under suspension. Jawahar Doreswamy, chancellor of the university, said the institution is verifying the authenticity of the footage.
“All our classroom 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.
He added that faculty members are trained at the beginning of the year to handle classroom situations. “Sometimes, there could be indiscipline in the classroom, and people can overreact. In this particular case, this faculty member is not a 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.
Describing the incident as “100% unacceptable”, he said, “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.”
However, no police complaint has been filed yet. City police said that after the video went viral, they approached the college authorities and students, urging them to file a complaint so that legal action could be initiated.
“However, the management asked us to wait for some time. 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.