Visva-Bharati vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty on Wednesday faced protests from a group of teachers of the physics department in the wake of his alleged “derogatory” remarks, forcing him to leave a teachers’ council meeting.

Teachers said Chakrabarty was shouted at till he left, after he used terms like “awmanush (inhuman)” and “Mir Jafar” for teachers over their alleged negligence in keeping files safe from termites.

In the evening, the department took a resolution to condemn the VC’s “obnoxious behaviour”. In the resolution, they cited the words “awmanush” and “Mir Jafar”.

“A teachers’ council meeting was called by the principal earlier, where the VC suddenly came and started accusing teachers as some files were damaged by termites....He suddenly started abusing us, using terms such as awmanush and Mir Jafar. All the teachers stood up...asked him to get lost if he couldn’t speak like a gentleman,” said a physics teacher. “The VC had to leave. One may say he was shouted out,” he added.

A physics teacher said when Chakrabarty used words such as Mir Jafar, he was called “Tughlaq”, used to imply a whimsical decision-maker.

Wednesday’s incident took place within few days of a police complaint against Chakrabarty by two physics teachers over the alleged confinement of a group of English teachers for over six hours.

Teachers had alleged it was a ploy by authorities to “grab” a petition to the Prime Minister and President on the varsity’s state of affairs — to identify the teachers who had written it — while authorities claimed that wasn’t confinement but a series of meetings.

However, following that incident, the head of the physics department Manas Maity was removed from his post and the two physics teachers were showcaused for lodging the complaint. Sources said four more teachers were showcaused on Wednesday for accompanying the two physics teachers.

“Because of the lockdown, termites damaged portions of a few files and principal Taraprasad Chatterjee was informed. The authorities sent two officials to look into the matter and a teachers’ committee meeting was convened. We think it was planned to humiliate us. We had nothing to do with termites when the campus was closed for months,” said a physics teacher.

Visva-Bharati public relations officer Anirban Sircar neither took calls nor replied to a text message from this paper.

However, in a news release, Sircar said the VC had visited the department on learning files and books had been damaged by termites. Sircar stated when authorities saw what happened to the files and books, teachers expressed their ire which was unfortunate.

Sircar said the rooms where the damaged files and books had been stored were sealed and a committee would probe the incident.