Activist Teesta Setalvad on Friday accused the administration of the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru of stopping her from giving a lecture.
“Some professors and students had invited me for a lecture at the CCE Hall on ‘Communal Harmony and Justice’ and I think it was a last-minute decision of the administration to cancel the meeting,” Setalvad alleged.
She also alleged that the university administration tried to prevent her from entering the campus, and was allowed only after the faculty intervened.
Setalwad’s lecture had been organised by “Break The Silence”, a student group in IISc, according to The Indian Express.
Members of the group said they had sought permission for the event from the registrar of the university. However, on the day of the event, Setalvad was stopped from entering the campus without any intimation or notice to the group.
Subsequently, the venue for the lecture was moved to Sarvam Complex and the discussion began at around 5.45 pm and went on till 8 pm.
Setalvad said that over 40 students and professors attended the lecture, during which discussions were held on “justice, peace, the critical juncture where India is at and also the need for citizens today to collectively come together, speak up for rationality, dissent, communal harmony and peace”.
“Communal harmony and peace cannot be a taboo word in modern-day 21st century India,” she said.
The activist has been accused of fabricating evidence related to the 2002 Gujarat riots with the objective of destabilising the state government. She was booked on June 25, just a day after the Supreme Court dismissed Zakia Jafri and Setalvad’s plea challenging Modi’s exoneration in the Gujarat violence.
Zakia Jafri is the wife of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, was hacked to death when a mob went on a rampage in Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002, setting fire to homes.
Just before she was arrested on June 26, Union Home Minister Amit Shah accused Setalvad of feeding baseless information to the police about the riots to tarnish Modi’s image.
She was finally granted bail on Jul 19 by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme court set aside an order of the Gujarat High Court rejecting her plea for regular bail and asking her to surrender immediately on July 1, saying that it was “totally perverse” and “contradictory”.
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