Mumbai Mirror Bureau |
Ferreira was due to read from his book describing his four-and-a-half years in prison as an under-trial in 11 cases related to Naxalism, in all of which he was subsequently acquitted.
Both TISS authorities and the police denied external interference and said the book reading had been postponed because the Students’ Union had failed to obtain the requisite permissions to book the venue.
Ferreira has previously been employed by TISS and had delivered a lecture in the campus in 2012.
“We read out a section of Ferreira’s book and a chapter from Perumal Murugan’s book that invited the ire of Right-wing groups,“ said one of the students, who had organised the protest. Following the cancellation of the talk, institute director Prof S Parsuraman, had written to the students denying Ferreira’s charge of police interference. Accusing Ferreira of spreading wrong information, Parsuraman had claimed that his experience “over the past 26 hours“ had convinced him that Ferreira was “not amenable to reason“ and that he would not be invited to speak in the campus since his talk had “no scholarly value“.
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