Amidst the ongoing controversy over the Mohammed Ali Jinnah portrait at the Aligarh University(AMU), noted Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen said that Jinnah was never a respected figure in Bangladesh either.
Taking to Twitter, she wrote that Jinnah was not respected among the academic circles of Bangladesh as he had declared Urdu as the state language of East Pakistan, a region where the majority of people are Bengalis.
She added that many colleges and educational institutions named after Jinnah were renamed post-Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 - Jinnah college thus became the Titumir College and Jinnah Avenue became the Bangabandhu Avenue.
The Jinnah portrait issue was raked on May 1 when a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member of parliament (MP) Satish Gautam, in a letter to the AMU vice-chairman, asked to explain why it displays a portrait of Pakistan's founding father Muhammed Ali Jinnah in its campus. Soon after the letter was sent, members of the right-wing Hindu Yuva Vahini (HYV) barged into the campus premises shouting slogans against the hanging of Jinnah's portrait. They even clashed with the AMU students who were not in favour of removing Jinnah's portrait saying that it was a part of the university's history. At least 30 students were injured as the police resolved to lathi-charge and tear gas to disperse the protesting mob.
The Aligarh administration also imposed Section 144 in the town amid the violent protests on May 2. Internet services were also suspended for a day on May 2 to prevent the circulation of communal messages on social networking sites.
Meanwhile, the University has postponed the varsity examinations till May 12 in the wake of the controversy.
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