Student who questioned gender segregation in Kerala's Farooq college suspended

When the parents met college authorities, the management asked students to submit an apology letter

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Dinu V, a first year Post Graduate student of the reputed Farooq college in Kozhikode, Kerala has been suspended indefinitely. His crime? He was one of the students who questioned the college over its policy of segregating female and male students. And unlike other students, who were perhaps forced to, Dinu was not ready to give a written apology.

Dinu and a bunch of students had questioned the college's decision of not letting female and male students sit together in class or canteen.

On October 20, Dinu and eight friends were asked to leave the class and warned not to enter the campus till they brought their parents, as the boys and girls had shared benches during their Malayalam language class.

Later, when the parents met college authorities, the management asked students to submit an apology letter.

Though the others apologised, mostly yielding to compulsion from their parents, Dinu refused as he staunchly believed he had done nothing wrong.

While speaking to The News Minute, the student said this was not the first time the college authorities had shown discriminatory and sexist behaviour.

“In the benches placed in college corridors, only boys are allowed to sit. In the canteen, there are separate sections for boys and girls and in between that is the staff section to ensure that we don't break the rules," he says.

Dinu, an IIT dropout, adds that there are strict instructions from the management that girls and boys cannot do a stage performance together in which prior rehearsals are needed.

"They think that only a physical relationship can develop when a boy and girl sit or talk together,” he says.

He also alleged that authorities had been mentally torturing the parents of these students, forcing them to give an apology.

When the controversy had first broken out, the college had said that boys and girls sitting together on a bench doesn’t suit the ‘culture’ of the 67-year old institution.

After the incident, there were many protests inside the campus both in support and against the management action. Many political leaders like VT Balram MLA and Thomas Isaac MLA had criticized the management for its action.