IMPHAL, February 23: The Minorities Students Association Manipur has charged the Directorate of Higher Education and COHSEM of discriminating against Muslim students.
A statement of the student body said this referring to the incident occurred on February 21 at Lilong Haoreibi College.
The statement alleged that COHSEM chairman with his narrow vision, asked Muslim students who were wearing religious attire to stop writing the exam and removed the religious cap worn by them which was more like making fun of one`™s religion.
It claimed that the expelled students were innocent and said when the expelled students asked for proof and reason for expelling them, the chairman tried to run them over with his vehicle.
A flying squad team consisting of 34 people including the Additional Director of Higher Education and Chairman of COHSEM came to inspect the exam centre creating panic amongst the students who were writing the exam, it maintained.
Refuting ATSUM`™s comment carried as news items in local dailies, the MSA further said it is very unfortunate that ATSUM commented on the issue by considering only the reports collected from the officer-in-charge of the exam centre, without visiting the spot and without understanding the cause of the incident.
MSA also questioned how much money ATSUM took from the council chairman to help him in covering his misdeeds.
Further, it said that JSCC instead of trying to find out the truth about the incident and punish the wrong doers, suppressed the minority Muslims and charged the OC of the exam centre of misdeeds.
JSCC`™s comment on the issue is one sided and unfortunate, it added.
It has also appealed to the URF to find out the truth first in the incident and said that it was very unfortunate that the URF gave its verdict on the issue without knowing the whole truth.
In this regard, it said if the council does not clarify on the issue after finding out the truth before February 25, the student body is all set to launch various forms of agitation, it warned.
It has also called the attention of the State Education minister regarding the issue.