Visva-Bharati authorities on Thursday suspended two student leaders who took part in protests on January 9 to condemn the recent suspension of economics professor and faculty association president Sudipta Bhattacharyya.

In the suspension notice issued by Visva-Bharati proctor Sankar Majumder to student leaders Somnath Sow and Phalguni Pan, the varsity accused them of “forcibly” breaking the “seal/ lock of the chamber of a particular faculty member in the Department of Economics & Politics, Visva-Bharati, on 09.01.2021”.

The notice states that the decision to suspend the students had been taken by vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty and the suspension would continue till a detailed inquiry by the varsity, likely to take three months, is over.

Sow, a leader of the SFI, and Pan are leading members of the outfit Visva-Bharati Students’ Unity that had been protesting against many moves of the VC that they termed were aimed at “saffronising the campus”.

Both Sow and Pan are also first-year postgraduate students in the department of economics where Bhattacharyya, widely perceived to be at loggerheads with the present varsity dispensation, taught.

Several teachers and students of the university condemned Thursday’s suspension and said that it exposed the vengeful nature of the administration and VC.

Condemning the “unjustified action that smacked of political vendetta”, a teacher considered close to the suspended students said they had been targeted for being the voices of dissent on the campus and “daring” to ask Bhattacharyya’s suspension order be revoked.

Bhattacharyya had been suspended on January 7 for alleging irregularities in the appointment of the principal of one of the university’s schools.

A teacher said that on Wednesday the VC had summoned teaching and non-teaching staff of the economics department and asked them to identify the students who took part in the protest against Bhattacharyya's suspension on January 9.

“The duo earned the wrath of the varsity administration as they have been spearheading protests against the VC’s attempt to push the BJP’s agenda on the campus. Both Sow and Pan had been leading students on issues ranging from their opposition to the CAA seminar where the VC had invited BJP ideologue and MP Swapan Dasgupta to the recent decision to invite Union home minister Amit Shah to the campus,” he added.

The two students had been put under “house arrest" in Bolpur on December 20, the day Shah visited Santiniketan.

Justifying their suspension, the proctor’s letter states that the action against the student leaders have been taken because their “attempt to damage the public property of Visva-Bharati and to create disturbance on the campus” amounted to “gross indiscipline and misconduct on their part”. During their period of suspension, the two will “not be able to attend or participate in any class, lecture, conference, workshop, seminar, examination, viva-voce etc of the University”.

Wasif Iqbal, the Birbhum secretary of the SFI, condemned the move. “The suspension of the two student leaders proves our claim that the VC is working to fulfil the RSS-BJP agenda to saffronise the varsity.”