Over 150 Activists Write to Jamia VC Against the Cancellation of Safoora Zargar's Admission
Image Courtesy:Twitter/ @SafooraZargar
Over 150 feminist activists, individuals, and groups have written to the Vice Chancellor and Faculty Committee of Jamia Millia Islamia University "to revoke the cancellation of Safoora Zargar's admission and to allow her to submit her MPhil thesis."
The university cancelled Zargar's admission on Monday, August 29, from the integrated MPhil-PhD programme in the sociology department, citing an unsatisfactory progress report.
Zargar was previously "booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for allegedly making an "inflammatory speech on February 23, 2020. She was granted bail in the matter in June 2020.
Yesterday, in a Twitter post, Zargar said that the Jamia administration ignored all due process and moved at a light speed to take action against her.
The cancellation notification by the administration mentioned that she was asked to apply for an extension specifically for women scholars. The letter to the Jamia VC by activists says that the cancellation on the grounds that Zargar's work is unsatisfactory "is in direct contradiction to earlier evaluations where she was told that she had "made good headway" with her research." It further says that Zargar was earlier credited for identifying "the categories and concepts through which to articulate her research topic."
By its actions, the statement reads, the Jamia administration has only added to Zargar's suffering. While scholars across the country were granted multiple extensions in the context of COVID-19, the Jamia sociology department deemed Zargar ineligible for more than one extension without any legitimate justification.
"It is commendable that Safoora has managed to meet work deadlines through her pregnancy, incarceration, and childbirth, despite the severe mental duress she is undergoing as someone being prosecuted on unfair grounds. We fail to understand why her repeated pleas and rightful
asks have gone unanswered and why she is being discriminated against when extensions have been approved by the UGC and have been provided to all research scholars across the board. The discrimination shown by the department and the university adds to the violence that she
has already been through, and continues to undergo in both online and offline spaces," the statement says.
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