Will the FTII prez please speak up?

R Madhavan

Much has happened since right-wing activists, on January 23, barged into the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII) campus and attacked students over a banner that read: ‘Remember Babri, death of Constitution.' Soon, on January 26, 300 FTII alumni - that included Oscar-winning sound designer Resul Pookutty, Badhaai Do director Harshavardhan Kulkarni and film editor Antara Lahiri - penned an open letter condemning the violence against the students. Now, the FTII Students Association (FSA) has called for an academic halt and urged the premier institute's president, actor-filmmaker R Madhavan, to step in.

While a First Information Report (FIR) was lodged against the instigators at Deccan police station, on January 24, another FIR was registered against seven students allegedly by members of the organisation that orchestrated the attack. A student, on condition of anonymity, tells mid-day, "[On Tuesday], they burnt the posters we had put up, hit our student body president Mankap Nokwoham and others. Now, they are levelling incorrect accusations against us - it's being said that we had a box for suggestions on how to reconstruct Babri Masjid, which is not accurate.

Two of the people named in the FIR, Mankalan Chakravarty and Nathan Chakropadhyay, don't even belong to our campus. The registrar office has asked us to deal with the situation [on our own]. So, now, we're going on academic halt. Our student bodies are writing to other student unions, including those of Tata Institute of Social Sciences and Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute. It's baffling that through it all, R Madhavan has kept mum. Thankfully, the alumni are taking care of us."

Meanwhile, the alumni are rallying for increased security for students. A 2018 alumnus says, "We are writing to cops to make sure the security on campus is strengthened. It's necessary to take prompt action against those who perpetrated violence against the students."