IIMC student suspended

New Delhi: A student of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) has been suspended over "sweeping statements" made by him in support of an academic associate of the premier media school who was sacked recently and for "provoking" his batch mates over the same. Rohin Kumar, the student of Hindi Journalism department, was suspended and declared out of bounds from the campus on January 9, pending proceedings of the institute's disciplinary committee. IIMC Director General KG Suresh told PTI that no institute of merit can tolerate such "sweeping statements" and that the student had "crossed the limit". "He was also trying to provoke other students. We suspended him for having prima facie violated the code of conduct of the institute. We have not rusticated him. How can a student pass a verdict on what is a sub-judice issue?" Suresh asked. He was referring to sacked teacher Narendra Singh Rao's case. Rao has recently moved the Delhi High Court against the decision. When contacted, Rohin denied having made any defamatory post online, saying he was at a loss over the decision, especially considering that IIMC was a media institute. "For me, it's been only a while in IIMC but I have been writing in online media for long. I wrote taking all facts into consideration and stuck to basics of reporting. I do not know what warranted this extreme action. Even the guards have been given my pictures so that they can stop me from entering the campus," he said. Last year, controversy had rocked IIMC when Amit Sengupta, a senior faculty member of the institute, resigned alleging that he was "targeted" for supporting the protests over Dalit student Rohith Vemula's suicide and JNU and FTII issues. Later, it had ordered the expulsion of a student from its hostel for three weeks for posting "offensive and "insulting" remarks on social media against students belonging to the SC and ST community. In the wake of the incidents, the I&B Ministry had recommended the creation of a social media policy."