NEW DELHI: IIT Mandi director Laxmidhar Behera has stirred controversy after he asked students to take a pledge not to eat meat while claiming that landslides and cloudbursts in Himachal Pradesh are happening because of cruelty to animals.
"Himachal Pradesh will have a significant downfall...if we do not stop butchering animals. You are butchering animals there...the innocent animals. It has a symbiotic relationship with the degradation of the environment as well... which you cannot see right now but is there," he claimed.
"It is having landslides, cloudbursts and many other things again and again, these are all effects of cruelty on animals...people eat meat," Behra said while addressing the students, a video of which is doing the rounds on social media.
"To become good human beings, what do you have to do? No to meat eating," he further said and then went on to ask the students to vow not to eat meat.
There was no response from Behera on the controversy.
His comments attracted criticism from netizens.
"The collapse is complete. These superstitious fools will destroy whatever little was built in 70 years," Sandeep Manudhane, an entrepreneur and IIT Delhi alumni, said on X.
Gautam Menon, a professor of biophysics, said, "In the current dispensation, having views like those of the director of IIT Mandi featured here is a feature, not a bug. It's simply sad."
This is not the first time Behera has stirred a row with his controversial comments.
Last year, he hit the headlines for claiming that he was involved in an act of exorcism to rid his friend's apartment and family of "evil spirits" by chanting "holy mantras."
'IIT-Mandi director not fit to hold position'
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Thursday said IIT-Mandi Director Laxmidhar Behera is not fit to hold the position after he purportedly claimed that cloudbursts and landslides in Himachal Pradesh are happening because people eat meat.
Sharing a news report on the statement made by Behera, Ramesh said on X that the longer he stays in office "more the damage he will do to the spirit of scientific temper."
"The PM spoke of plastic surgery being known to our ancestors. He also told children climate has not changed, while we have. A senior Minister confused Newton and Einstein while another justified excluding Darwin from textbooks. Now, this simply flabbergasting statement from the Director of a prestigious institution!!! He actually has shown he is not fit to hold the position. The longer he stays, more the damage he will do to the spirit of scientific temper," Ramesh posted.
Science and spirituality is one thing, but science and crackpot theories that are put out by people in positions of power is quite another, he said.
(With inputs from PTI and IANS)