Contesting the charges that students had indulged in rioting and directed their ire towards the Director of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) Prashant Pathrabe, the FTII Students’ Association on Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene in the situation and help find a solution to their 70-day-old agitation.
A day after Pathrabe alleged he was “illegally confining him” for “8 to 10” hours and “mentally tortured” by the agitating FTII students on Monday, the Students’ Association came out with a detailed statement to refute the allegations made by the FTII’s Director against the students who had “gheraoed” the latter in protest against his decision to go ahead with the “pro-rata” assessment of the incomplete diploma film projects of the 2008 batch.
“He (Pathrabe) stated he was mentally tortured using interrogation techniques and that the students entered his office with the intent to vandalise it. These allegations are extraordinary because the level to which they skew the truth. We have already started circulating several videos that prove how for 7 hours, the Director engaged with the students and faculty amicably,” the Students’ Association said in its statement.
Ahead of the arrival of a three-member team constituted by the I&B Ministry in Pune to assess the ground situation at the students’ strike-hit FTII, the Association stated: “We do look forward to the visit of the 3-member panel of the Ministry tomorrow, and are still willing, even in these tumultuous circumstances, to engage in a meaningful dialogue with an open mind to try to arrive at a solution to this crisis that has been evading us so far.
“Still unknowing of the agenda of this panel and not having received any official note regarding their visit, we most urgently appeal to the Honourable Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi to intervene in this crisis, hear out our concerns and help us arrive at a solution for this impasse,” the Association stated.
Taking a serious exception to the FTII management’s decision to involve the police to deal with students engaged in “demanding answers to our questions” from the institute’s Director, the Association indirectly admitted the situation went out of control when the police arrived on the scene, even while denying that the students had indulged in any violence inside Pathrabe’s chamber on Monday.
“It was only when the police arrived, at a time when there was no reason for them to, no law and order situation had occurred, the situation escalated. Even then, despite the scuffle that broke out thereon, no FTII student engaged in any act of violence towards the director or to the police that was aggressively manhandling them,” the Association stated, adding one of the visiting police officers broke the glass window panes.
After Pathrabe lodged a complaint with Pune’s Deccan Gymkhana police on Tuesday against “40 to 45” agitating students for allegedly indulging violence, damaging the institute’s property and subjecting him to mental torture, a team of police personnel entered the institute premises on Tuesday and arrested five students for “illegally confining him” for “8 to 10” hours and other offences that took place inside his chamber on Monday.
The five arrested students, booked on charges of criminal intimidation, rioting and preventing through force a public servant from discharging his duty, were released on bail by a Pune court against a cash surety of Rs 3,000 each.
Talking to media persons, Pathrabe had said on Wednesday: “They tortured me by using interrogation techniques,verbal assault including asking the same question and continuously threatened me to take the decision back. They also indulged in disrespectful and insulting behaviour”.
“When the police came in there was a scuffle that ensued and they broke the furniture, telephones, wires, computers in the office climbing on top of the table. After 8 -9 hours of torture I was forced by students to answer questions at 11 pm in the night when the same questions had been asked 6-8 times. They were enraged as they couldn’t break me,” Pathrabe had said.