A day after a Jawaharlal Nehru University panel upheld the expulsion order against him and other students, Umar Khalid vowed Friday to challenge the order in court and said the students would not “lie low”.
In a post on Facebook, Khalid said that this is the third time this order is being passed, despite it being set aside twice by courts earlier.
“An administration that has been running at the orders of the ruling BJP and the RSS, was at no point of time in a position of impartiality to conduct this enquiry. The court has repeatedly found faults with the enquiry process and have vindicated our apprehensions,” Khalid wrote in the post.
Khalid said that two weeks before the deadline for their final submission, the high-level enquiry committee (HLEC) awarded punishments to students.
“It is symptomatic of their larger assault on public funded education, on research on social justice, and on criticality. However, we want to assure them that we shall not lie low,” he wrote.
The PhD scholar said that they were being “targeted in a systematic and a malafide manner by an enquiry that was prejudiced against us from day one”.
Khalid vowed to continue the struggle against the “vindictive witch hunt” of every voice in universities across the country.
“It is against all principles of natural justice, and is riddled with contradictions, lies and malice which will soon be exposed again,” wrote Khalid.
The HLEC upheld the rustication of Khalid and imposed a fine of Rs. 10,000 on former students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar. The punishments were handed out in connection with the controversial February 2016 incident when students observed the death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, and were accused of shouting anti-national slogans. Financial penalties were imposed on 13 other students as well.
