VARANASI: After protesting for almost a month against Prof Firoz Khan's appointment as assistant professor in the Sanskrit Sahitya department of, the students of the faculty of Sanskrit Vidya Dharam Vijnan (SVDV) ended their stir.
Prof Khan joined Sanskrit department under Arts faculty in the same capacity at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) immediately after tendering his resignation from Sanskrit Sahitya department of SVDV on late Monday evening. He had, however, cleared interviews of assistant professor in two other departments-- department of Ayurveda under Institute of medical sciences and department of Sanskrit under Arts faculty -- on November 29 and December 4 respectively. He preferred to join the department of Sanskrit under Arts faculty.
Consequent to these developments, the SVDV students who had been protesting against Prof Firoz Khan's appointment since November 7, 2019, ended their stir on Tuesday afternoon.
After the end of the demonstrations, now SVDV dean has decided to reschedule the semester exams which had to commence on Tuesday but postponed owing to students' stir.
While BHU Spokesman Rajesh Kumar Singh confirmed that Prof Khan’s joining at the Sanskrit department as assistant professor, SVDV’s acting dean Prof Kaushalendra Pandey revealed that Khan had put in his papers at a special meeting of BHU administration late on Monday night and he had immediately joined the Arts faculty.
Earlier on November 21, the protesting students of SVDV had suspended their sit–in (dharna) for 10 days on the condition that the university authorities would respond to their queries in connection with the appointment of a non-Hindu to SVDV.
But they revived the agitation on November 30 on the pretext of not getting satisfactory response to their demands and related queries. The students had been charging the BHU administration with flouting the BHU 1951 Act while appointing Prof Khan to SVDV.
However, the university executive council, which had met at India International Centre, New Delhi, on last Saturday had approved the appointment of Prof Khan.