Over 50 academics have urged Delhi University to withdraw the punishment imposed on students for an on-campus screening of the BBC documentary on Narendra Modi and the Gujarat riots, reminding the century-old institution that defending the government is not its job.

“We need not tell you that university is supposed to be a space where students and teachers feel free to get information from any source, decide for themselves and express themselves freely,” says the letter, addressed to vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh.

“They are adults and can take decisions for themselves. We, teachers and administrators, are not here to police their thoughts or censor their sources of information. The only condition we all must follow while exercising this right is that it should not promote hatred and violence.”

Delhi University has barred two PhD students, Lokesh Chugh and Ravinder Singh, from all academic activities, including exams for one year, and asked six other students to submit written apologies for screening the film without permission on January 27.

The academics’ letter contends that the documentary was never banned, and that the failure to secure permission for its screening was not a serious enough offence for the university to bar students from exams.

It says the two-part documentary is only a critical examination of the present regime in the context of the situation of Indian Muslims, and its screening by some students cannot be considered a threat to order on the campus. The screening did not cause any violence or disturbance.

“It is our duty, as university community, to make campus a safe space for the students to engage in critical thinking. It is needless to say that it is not the job of the university to defend the government or disallow thoughts critical to it. We hope that our concern would be heard and the said punishment order would be withdrawn,” the letter says.

The signatories include Apoorvanand, Nandini Sundar, Satish Deshpande, Sahana Bhattacharya, Bharati Jagannathan, Ira Raja, Nandita Narain (all from DU and its colleges), Sucharita Sen, Avinash Kumar (both from JNU), Kaushik Bhattacharya, Manas Maity (both from Visva-Bharati), and Roshan D’Souza (Kyoto University).

The documentary, India: The Modi Question, takes a critical look at then chief minister Modi’s role during the 2002 riots and the condition of Muslims after he became Prime Minister in 2014. The Centre had asked YouTube and Twitter to take down links to the film.