Agartala, Mar 30: The National Institute of Technology (NIT) here has rejected the proposal of its disciplinary panel to suspend 57 students for six months over a comment on Facebook against a girls' hostel superintendent, officials said here Saturday.
"The NIT authority following the protest of the guardians, students and some NGOs, has disallowed a disciplinary committee's proposal to suspend 57 students, mostly girls, for six months following a comment on Facebook against a hostel superintendent," a NIT official told reporters.
"The NIT authority have realised that it would be major punishment to the students for a tiny fault. The students have also earlier apologised for their comment on Facebook," the official added.
According to family members of the students, a seven-member disciplinary committee, headed by dean, students welfare R.S. Panua, last week proposed to suspend the students - most of them final semester students with a month of the course left and some also having landed jobs through campus placements - for six months and also suggested their hostel facilities be withdrawn for an year.
The proposed punishment came after a student equated hostel superintendent Mahua Biswas - a close relative of institute director P.K. Basu - with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Facebook post and the remaining students supported the comment, said a guardian of one of these students.
"Though the hostel superintendent was always non-cooperative and harsh with the students, the students have apologised for their comment on Facebook," the guardian said.
After some guardians protested the punitive action, a meeting was held between them and college authorities.
The NIT teachers' association has also informed the matter to Tripura government and the union human resource development ministry on the issue.
"The HRD ministry is the appropriate authority to take apt steps in the matter. We are also looking into the issue," Tripura Higher Education Minister Bhanulal Saha told IANS.
