Udupi, Nov 28: A professor at Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) was temporarily suspended by the institution after he referred to a Muslim student as a 'terrorist' during a class. The action against the professor came after a video of the incident, which reportedly took place a few days ago, started going viral on social media on November 28.
In the viral video, the student is seen questioning the professor who reportedly called the former as “Kasab”, a dreaded terrorist who was captured alive and hanged for his role in 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
When the professor, identified as Ravindranatha, tried to defend his comments and dubbed it as a fun, the student retorted: "Being a Muslim and facing this every day is not funny".
The teacher then said that the student was like his son, the student replied, "No, if a father says like that, it's on him. It's not funny."
"Will you talk like that to your son? Will you call him a terrorist? How can you call me like that in front of so many people? This is a class, you're professional, and you're teaching. You can't call me that," the student was heard replying.
The teacher can be seen apologising to the student later in the video.
After the video went viral, MIT suspended the professor and ordered an internal inquiry.
"We condemn such kind of incidents as we are an institute that believes in sarwa dharma (equal respect to all religions) and vasudhaiva kutumbkam (one world, one family). Appropriate action is being taken on this issue and we are doing the needful. Counselling is being given to the student, and the professor is kept under suspension until the probe is completed," SP Kar, Director of Public Relations, Manipal University, is quoted as saying.
"We don't know right now because the incident took place during one of his normal sessions and it is challenging to trace the dialogue that led to this issue. Therefore, we have taken suo motu action. The student is really anxious because nobody actually expected this. And we have no idea who recorded the video, etc.
"We were ensuring that the institution should run efficiently. Only the concerned professor may provide particular answers because the investigation is ongoing," said SP Kar.
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