Manipal Institute of Technology has said it has initiated an inquiry into an incident in which a Muslim student was subjected to Islamophobic abuse by a faculty inside the classroom.
“The concerned staff has been debarred from classes till the inquiry is over,” the institute said in a press release.
“We would like everyone to know that the institute does not condone this kind of behaviour and this isolated incident will be dealt with in accordance with the laid down policy. The institute prides itself with one of the biggest diversity on campus and is committed to uphold our constitutional values of treating everyone alike, irrespective of their caste, religion, region, gender etc,” read the MIT’s statement.
This comes after a viral video showed a Muslim student calling out Islamophobic remarks by a faculty named Ravindranatha in Karnataka’s Manipal Institute of Technology.
“Being a Muslim and facing this everyday is not funny,” the student can be heard saying in the video.
When the faculty replied that the student was like his son, he said, “No, if a father says like that, it’s on him. It’s not funny.”
The incident happened on 25 November, Maktoob confirmed with the student.
“All of you must have seen a video going viral where a student is telling his teacher that racist comments are not acceptable. The reason behind this was him calling me by an unacceptable name, “Kasaab,” one of the biggest terrorists this country has ever seen. It was a joke, which can not be considered a valid enough reason to question the identity of a human being,” the student said.
“However, I had a conversation with the lecturer and realized that he genuinely meant that apology, and we as a student community must let it go as a genuine mistake. I understand what was happening in his head behind this and would like to believe he didn’t mean it. It came across wrong from a teacher, a person we admire, but it can be ignored this time. Thank you for standing with me through this. It means a lot,” he added.
Meanwhile Maktoob reached out to assistant professor Ravindranatha who called the student ‘Kasab’. “He is a good student only. He was not writing his notes. I asked him why he was not writing? He was a bit disturbed. I asked him ‘kaise hai aap’. He confused it with ‘Kasab’,” claimed Ravindranatha.
When Maktoob asked him why he said in the video ‘it’s a funny thing’, he did not respond. Ravindranatha said people have taken the video out of context.
Arbab Ali contributed to this reporting.
