Baroda university dean suspended

ART CONTROVERSY: The dean of Maharaja Sayajirao University's Fine Arts Faculty was suspended on Friday night.

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New Delhi: The Baroda Art controversy has taken a new twist. The dean of the Maharaja Sayajirao University's Fine Arts Faculty was suspended late on Friday night. Dean Shivji Panikker had come out openly in support of the students arrested for painting allegedly obscene works.

The University management has also closed down the exhibition where the paintings were on display.

BJP leader Niraj Jain said, “The students, teachers and the dean involved in this should immediately be suspended and if this is not done then the student leaders of Baroda will not remain silent."

That’s the demand the Hindutva brigade put forth after they vandalised this exhibition at the MS University on Wednesday for displaying allegedly obscene paintings.

And the University management seems to have completely bowed down to that fatwa. University top brass first refused to bail out the students who painted these works, when police arrested them.

And now the management has suspended the Fine Arts Faculty dean Shivji Panikkar after he openly supported his students.

MSU Fine Arts Faculty Dean Shivji Panikkar said, “Entire faculty of fine arts, staff, students and the artist community are with the student. I mean, the person is not even an artist. He's an art student. These are his creative works submitted for evaluation."

The University management reportedly decided to suspend Panikkar, after he refused to close down the controversial exhibition where the paintings were displayed.

Meanwhile, the arrested students are still in custody. One of them, Chandramohan, was produced in court on Friday.

The court has posted his bail hearing for Monday.