Student heckler 'assaulted' at seminar on floods

CHENNAI: A student of Madras University was forcibly removed from a seminar on Chennai floods and roughed up for interrupting the ad dress of the state election commission secretary Jothi Nirmalasamy on campus on Tuesday .
The student, Jonas Anton Pulendrarasa, who is pursu ing an MA in international relations, said he was beaten up by the faculty after he was taken out of the room.He filed a police complaint against four faculty members, including the controller of examinations and those from the Anna Centre for Public Affairs.
Nirmalasamy began her speech at the seminar on 'Managing Disasters: A Case Study of Chennai Floods' by sharing statistics and the initiatives taken up by the Tamil Nadu government to help flood-hit victims. At this point, Jonas interrupted by clapping loudly and said people were aware of the facts.
After Jonas was evicted, Nirmalasamy noted, "The anger against the government was seen in such a small room of people itself. So you can imagine how much more there is outside."
She added that criticism must not be personalised. "We need to focus on what needs to be done rather than what could have been done." Secretary of the state election commission Jothi Nirmalasamy said towards the beginning of her speech that serious criticism during calamities or tragedies is unavoidable.
While university faculty members moved to silence Jonas, Nirmalasamy said he could ask questions later and continued with her speech.
As she shared more statistics quoting the media, the student got up a few minutes later and shouted, "You are a government official, not a news reader."
Jonas was immediately forced out of his chair by faculty members and shoved out of the room where he was surrounded by a group of people.“I was manhandled and beaten on my back by faculty members,“ he said. Another student who witnessed the incident said that Jonas was hit near the eye.
Jonas, who was seen sitting outside the V-C's office in protest, said: "After 20 minutes, most of the students in the hall were bored and that is why I wanted to ask a question.I didn't do anything wrong. I was really afraid when others surrounded me."
Meanwhile, university officials said that the vice chancellor has personally apologised to the student. However, for them to take any action or initiate an inquiry , they insisted that the student must produce a letter stating what happened outside the room as most university officials were inside the seminar hall when he was escorted outside.
"The student had said that he will be producing a letter to us but so far we have not yet received any written complaint," said university registrar David P Jawahar.