Visva-Bharati teachers to fight for Bangladeshi student
A group of Visva-Bharati teachers and students has pledged legal and moral support to a Bangladeshi girl who was simply asked by the Centre to leave India for “anti-government activities” after she posted on Facebook pictures of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act at the university, The Telegraph reports.
The foreigners’ regional registration office or FRRO of the Union home ministry on Wednesday served a notice on Afsara Anika Meem, a first-year undergraduate student at the university’s Kala Bhavan, asking her to leave India within 15 days.
Afsara comes from Kushtia in Bangladesh and visited India in late 2018 to pursue her Bachelor of Design degree at the department of fine arts.
As the student wondered how to handle the situation, a portion of teachers got touching senior legal representatives in Kolkata on Thursday to get legal remedy against the order.
“The lady had posted a few photographs on social media and based on that, she's been asked to leave the country. We have already contacted a senior attorney of Kolkata High Court and will extend all support to her,” The Telegraph quoted a senior professor of Visva-Bharati as saying.
The marching order to Afsara could possibly be legally contested because there is no evidence in the notice of her involvement in the “anti-government activities”, according to High Court lawyer Samim Ahmed.
“I have been through the order and her Facebook posts. The order will not cite any particular activity that presents she went against the federal government. She has the proper to comment in fact it is a very vague reason for the Centre to ask her to leave the united states. The order was served even without hearing her,” said Ahmed, one of the legal professionals contacted by the teachers.
“I'll extend legal support to her,” he added.
Students and teachers criticised the “leave-India notice” to the Bangaldeshi girl.
“Ours is a free of charge country where US President Donald Trump could be invited even after proposing to mediate between India and Pakistan, but a girl from Bangladesh can’t post on Facebook photographs of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. The order has meted injustice to her,” said Somnath Sow, an SFI leader at Visva-Bharati.
To protest against the incident, they have called a gathering cutting across political lines on Monday, Sow added.
Afsara visited the FRRO office Kolkata where officials apparently informed her that they cannot do anything as the matter was under the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi.
“The officials concerned have suggested that she can write to some offices explaining her side of the story,” among her friends said.
The students, who participated in the anti-CAA protests at Visva-Bharati, confirmed that Afsara had not been involved in any such events.
“Visva-Bharati is a location where students from various countries come for study and be our friends. The utmost number of foreign students result from Bangladesh. I can concur that she did not participate in any protest at all. We are with her,” said Swapnanil Mukherjee, an economics student at Visva-Bharati.
Visva-Bharati has around 100 students from Bangladesh and many of them are afraid following a leave-India letter to Afsara, said sources.
“Many Bangladeshi students had opted to see protests against things which range from free hike to the CAA. Afsara had only posted a few photographs on Facebook. That is a scary situation for all of us,” said students from Bangladesh.
However, leaders of ABVP, a right-wing student organisation at Visva-Bharati are pleased with the action against Afsara. They had written to vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty on Jan 23 demanding inquiry and action against her.
They had sent a copy of the letter to the offices of the Prime Minister and the foreign minister in Delhi.
“We had described the girl’s role in the anti-CAA protest inside our letter to the VC,” said ABVP leader Apoorva Sharod.
