IIT Delhi director flags 'unsavoury, threatening' slogans amid protest over student's death

IIT Delhi Director Rangan Banerjee has warned of disciplinary action against students "disrupting the peaceful functioning of the campus" by raising "threatening slogans" amid the ongoing protest over the alleged suicide of a 31-year-old MSc student.

Banerjee noted that the protest "escalated significantly" on Thursday night, with demonstrations reaching campus residential areas.

In an email to students on Friday, Banerjee wrote that a group of protesters demonstrated outside faculty housing between 10.30 PM and 12.30 AM and used "unsavoury, humiliating and threatening language in their slogans."

"Such behaviour compromises the safety, privacy, and peace of faculty members and their families, including young children and elderly dependents," he said.

The director stated the institute would act against those disrupting the functioning of the campus. "The Institute will take disciplinary actions against individuals disrupting the peaceful functioning of the campus including residential areas, classes, academic and other activities," Banerjee wrote.

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The communication came as student demonstrations entered their sixth consecutive day following Kumar's death. Students have been demanding an independent inquiry, action against institute officials and compensation for his family.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, on Thursday reconstituted the external probe panel set up to examine the circumstances surrounding the death of a student, with retired Delhi High Court judge Mukta Gupta as its head.

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The development came a day after former Uttarakhand DGP Ashok Kumar, who was appointed as chair of the probe panel, recused himself from the committee citing "personal reasons," even as student protests continued on campus.

The student allegedly died by suicide after jumping from a building on the institute's campus on August 22.