Hyderabad: Students and professors in English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) boycotted the classes on Wednesday, condemning the checks on professors and their arrests by Maharashtra police. Students from University of Hyderabad as well held a protest against the same.
The English and Foreign Languages University Teachers’ Association condemned the police raid on Professor K. Satyanarayana’s house on Tuesday. The association demanded an inquiry into the blatant fabrication of charges, the lies and misinformation used by the police team to facilitate the raid. Members of the English and Foreign Languages University Teachers’ Association also urged the state government to address the violation of human rights and intrusion of the police into the academic space.
They also demand that Prof. Satyanarayana’s personal belongings and research materials that were illegally seized be immediately returned to him. Hundreds of students of University of Hyderabad (UoH) held a protest in the university campus condemning the arrests and intimidation of eminent scholars and activists. The students and the teachers stated that the entire teaching community and students stands with Professor Satyanarayana during this unprecedented crisis.
The association said, “We have learnt that similar raids and instances of harassment of lawyers, activists, intellectuals and teachers on political grounds occurred in other parts of the country yesterday. We see this as part of a larger plan to silence secular, progressive and democratic voices across India. This is a clear-cut project of threatening and suppressing citizens who work for Dalit, Adivasi, and other marginalised groups. It is also part of a project to destroy academic freedom and progressive traditions within the universities’’. English and Foreign Languages University Teachers Association alleged that a group of policemen from Pune entered the EFL University campus without the permission of any officer and carried out a ‘raid’ on the home of Dr Satyanarayana. He is a leading scholar in literary and cultural studies, with immense academic contribution and is one among the few Dalit professors in the field.
