Kerala police quiz NIT professor over comment
KOZHIKODE: Kerala police on Sunday quizzed National Institute of Technology-calicut (NIT-C) professor Shaija Andavan, who posted a controversial comment praising Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse on Facebook on Jan.30, the day the country observed Martyrs’ Day to mark the assassination of Gandhi, the Father of the Nation.
Police team visited her house in Chathamangalam, near NIT-C campus and asked Prof. Shaija to appear at the station on Feb.13.
Police team is investigating the case, ater Student’s Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of ruling Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPIM), lodged a complaint with Kunnamangalam police demanding action against the professor for making the controversial comments.
NIT-C management has constituted a commitee to investigate the incident and assured appropriate action based on the findings of the panel, an official statement said on Saturday.
Authorities made it clear that the institute does not endorse or support any comment that goes against the principles and values upheld by Mahatma Gandhi.
The panel was constituted a week ater Shaija had been booked by police for her Facebook comment.
A senior faculty member of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the institute, Shaija had posted a comment on Facebook saying “Proud of Godse for saving India.”
She had commented on a post by a lawyer, Krishna Raj, who posted Godse’s photograph captioning it as ‘Hindu Mahasabha activist Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a hero of many in India.’
Prof Shaija deleted the post later ‘because it became controversial’. “NIT already saw a controversy and my post got clubbed to that,” she had told media persons on Feb.3.
She was referring to the unrest on the campus on Jan.22, the day the Ram Temple was consecrated in Ayodhya.
On Feb.2, she had reportedly told scribes that she stood by her post.
Godse, a leader of Hindu Mahasabha and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mother of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, killed Mahatma Gandhi at point blank range during a prayer meeting in Delhi on Jan.30 1948, barely months ater India gained independence from British rule. He was hanged in 1949 ater being found guilty.
Multiple complaints were lodged against Shaija in several police stations in the city by various student organisations, including Kerala Student’s Union (KSU) and Muslim Student’s Federation (MSF).