Lucknow: Hours after the Union HRD minister Smriti Irani flayed the Aligarh Muslim University vice chancellor for his controversial statement – if allowed in the central library, girls would “attract” more boys than usual and crowd the already limited space – Lt Gen Zameeruddin Shah hit back saying he had already met the minister in the past and if the government gave him more funds for expansion of the library, he would welcome the girls to use it.

“But in the given circumstances, when the library is already overcrowded with over 28,000 members, allowing an additional number of undergraduate girl students won’t be feasible. Besides the distance between the Women’s College and Azad library is 3km and road full of risk. All sorts of anti-social elements are out to target and tease the girls. Should I put my daughters to risk by allowing them to join the library,” asked Shah in an exclusive interview with TOI on Tuesday night. “The UG girls are too young to take decisions and their movement outside the campus is discouraged. That’s why coaching classes have been started for them on the campus,” he said.

“Above all, I have to follow the code of conduct of the Muslim community, which is traditional and conservative. I am trying to change it slowly by constructing a swimming pool and making the campus wifi-enabled,” he said. Shah stressed that he had been in Army for over 40 years and knew what modernity was. “But as the vice chancellor, I cannot take decisions which are against the Muslim sensibilities and society,” he said.

“The yardstick of the metropolitan universities of Delhi and Mumbai cannot be applied on the AMU. Can you imagine what will happen if I allow kiss and hug campaigns like JNU? I would be lynched,” Shah said, explaining that last year he wrote to parents of over 4,000 undergraduate girls, seeking their permission to allow them the attend the central library in the given circumstances. “Almost cent per cent rejected it and said the safety and the security of the girls was responsibility of the University administration,” Shah said, adding that whatever he said at the installation ceremony of the Women’s College on Monday was just in a jest and meant to stress that how much overcrowded the library was, but it was given a different spin.

Shah said a section on the campus was trying to malign his image ever since he took over. “Last year I faced a lot of criticism for my alleged ‘fatwa’ on girls’ dress code. I just happened that a group of girl students had come to see me wearing track suits. I said there should be certain dress code and decorum when someone meets head of an institution. I told them if they want to meet me they should come in proper dress of shalwar and kurta. It was branded as my “fatwa” that girls could meet me only in ‘burqa’(veil ),” he recalled, asking “how can I say such a thing when I don’t enforce these codes on my wife daughters?”

Earlier, HRD minister Irani said what Shah said amounted to an “insult to daughters” and added that education and Constitution rights were the same for all. “There are some reports which hurt you as a woman and also agitate you... that when we attained freedom there was a belief that education and Constitution rights were same for all. And now we get reports that amount to insult to daughters,” Irani said on the sidelines of a function in Delhi.

Minority affairs minister Nazma Heptullah said if there was no space in the library, why were only women deprived of using it? “It can be expanded,” she said. She termed the VC's remarks “appalling” and “shocking” even as Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the freshly inducted MoS, said such statements were “not acceptable in a civilised society”.

Social justice minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot said that instead of addressing the issue, “prohibiting somebody from not going (to the library) is not right. Arrangements should be made so that all students go to the library and study.”

Terming Shah's statement “regressive and antediluvian”, National Commission for Women chairperson Lalitha Kumaramangalam wondered, “Is it legal for them (AMU) to bar any student regardless of gender from accessing such services in a university?”

