Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students have now alleged that the varsity’s security unit “raided” a classroom during a movie screening which was part of academic curriculum.
However, the university officials maintained that they did not have any “intention” to raid or disrupt the screening but were being “extra-vigilant” considering the recent turn of events in the university.
A group of students have written to the JNU Students’ Union urging it to take up the issue with the administration.
The matter pertains to the Centre of law and Governance where Anand Patwardhan’s “Father, Son and Holy war” was being screened on March 23. “I have got a complaint that a guard accompanied by his supervisor raided the ongoing movie screening which was the part of one of the offered papers to M.Phil students.
“The students union will raise the issue of this classroom surveillance with the administration,” JNUSU Vice President Shehla Rashid Shora said.
A student of the same department, who did not wish to be named, said, “They intervened on the pretext of a so-called anonymous complaint that had been registered to the security control room.”
However, on demanding some circumstantial proof of the registered complaint by the students who were present in the seminar room, it could not be presented.”
“The two guards questioned about the movie and whether we have the permission to screen it or notIJ It is highly disappointing that a classroom is being put under surveillance on the order (tacit, unwritten and oral) of the university administration. If it is not confronted tooth and nail, soon we hope to find CCTV cameras and audio recording mikes in our classrooms and centres,” another student, who was present at the screening said.
The university authorities when contacted maintained that the intervention happened “mistakenly”. “The security had no intention to raid the classroom or disrupt the screening. The intervention happened mistakenly in an effort to be extra-vigilant considering the recent turn of events at the university,” a senior official at the Centre for law and Governance said.