CHENNAI: Days after a French national was allegedly roughed up by the university staff, officials from the French embassy, with whom the student has lodged a complaint, visited University of Madras campus on Friday.
Sources said the embassy officials had a discussion with university officials.
University registrar P David Jawahar said the University in no way had instigated violence against any student.
In a statement, he said the entire turn of incidents began when Anton Pulendrarasa Jonas, a French national and student of Department of Politics and Public Administration, started “clapping and heckling” at Jothi Nirmala, secretary, State Election Commission, when she was delivering the inaugural address at a seminar on disaster management in the backdrop of the floods.
“The speaker patiently explained that the questions or comments could be given at the end of the speech. However, after a few minutes the same student again disrupted the proceedings and stated that the claims of the speaker were false. At this stage, the organisers escorted the student outside the seminar hall,” said the registrar.
He said the students were pacified after the vice-chancellor offered an unconditional apology to the French student, if the incident was true. But after an hour, students started a protest by sitting on a dharna blocking the vice-chancellor’s car.
The incident snowballed when the staff allegedly manhandled the another Tanzanian student, who was part of the protest.
The registrar said the conduct of the students have been recorded in the CCTV camera installed in the premises. The university has no prejudice against any student and does not discriminate based on caste, creed, religion, gender or nationality.
Police complaints have been lodged by the students and another by the university staff.
The French embassy officials could not be reached and an email to the embassy did not get any reply until Saturday.