Rabindra Bharati row: Kolkata Police form investigation team, Vice-Chancellor withdraws resignation
Kolkata/IBNS: Rabindra Bharati University (RBU) vice-chancellor Sabyasachi Basu Roy Chowdhury, who had resigned from his position on Friday after vulgar body markings of a Tagore song at the Basanta Utsab (a pre-holi celebration) on the campus, withdrew his resignation on Saturday late evening, reports said.
According to reports, the VC agreed to withdraw his resignation after his university's students and West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee requested him not to resign as the Vice-Chancellor of RBU.
His resignation followed some youngsters' distortion of a song of Rabindranath Tagore by painting with abir obscene words and slangs on their bodies.
"I had words with state education minister Partha Chatterjee and he asked me to continue my duties as the Vice-Chancellor of Rabindra Bharati while my students also requested me not to leave following which I have decided to withdraw my resignation and to continue my duties here," Sabyasachi Basu Roy Chowdhury told IBNS.
"In the next meeting of university's executive council, we will discuss how to avoid the repetition of such incident, which maligned Rabindranath Tagore and the culture of RBU," he added.
Meanwhile, a senior official of Kolkata Police on Saturday said that they have constituted an investigation team, comprising few cyber crime experts, to probe the matter and also to examine the authenticity of the images and videos of the controversial incident, which went viral on social media.
Earlier on Thursday, RBU's BT Road campus in north Kolkata witnessed a shocking display of cuss words- read vulgar Bengali slangs- by a group of young students, who were later identified as outsiders, on their bodies while celebrating the annual Basanta Utsav (spring festival inspired by Bengali cultural icon Rabindranath Tagore whose song they lampooned).
Following the incident, RBU authority on Friday lodged a complaint with the Sinthee Police Station while five students of that group, including three girls and two boys, arrived at the university campus and apologised.
State Education Minister Partha Chatterjee said, "I don't have enough words to condemn such an incident, I just can't believe that these students did these things to malign Tagore and his songs."
"After being informed that RBU VC took all moral responsibilities of the incident and resigned from his position, I called him up and asked him to withdraw his resignation as he was not responsible for the untoward incident," Chatterjee added.
Meanwhile, four girl students of a renowned school in Malda district of West Bengal have drawn huge criticisms by posting a video on social media where they were seen singing a Tagore song's parody version using vulgar words and Bengali slangs in school uniforms.
Later on Saturday, those girls and their parents submitted letters of apology while the school's teacher-in-charge said that their future will be decided in next meeting of school's executive council.
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