A professor and a guest speaker at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay have been the target of a police complaint from students who claim the speaker supported Palestinian terrorists during a virtual lecture.
Action against the lecturer and the professor has been urged by the students for the discourse on Wednesday, November 6. The incident occurred in the midst of Israel and the terrorist organisation Hamas’ continuing conflict in Palestine.
The argument started when guest speaker Sudhanva Deshpande was invited to speak for an academic course called ‘HS 835 Performance Theory & Praxis’ by Professor Sharmistha Saha of the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) department at IIT Bombay. Students complained that Saha had ‘inappropriately used her position to invite Deshpande (a radical leftist) as part of her course work (HS 835)’ in their complaint.
The students claimed that Deshpande supported violent revolt and extolled the virtues of Palestinian terrorists Zakaria Zubeidi and Ghassan Kanafani.
‘He not only admitted to having met Palestinian terrorist Zubeidi in 2015 but also defended and glorified violence and armed rebellion. Zubeidi is a known figure associated with the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an organisation designated as a terrorist entity by various governments and international organisations, including the United States, the European Union and Israel,’ the letter added.
In addition to expressing concern about the potential security dangers associated with endorsing beliefs connected to terrorism, the letter also called for the police to look into the situation, given the influence such activities would have on young students development.
Many acts of terrorism, including a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that claimed the life of an Israeli woman, were attributed to Zubeida, according to a story published in The Times of Israel.
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