Allegedly wrote in support of a beef party at IIT-Madras

A government college teacher has been arrested here for allegedly writing an “objectionable post” on Facebook two years ago in support of a beef party in Chennai, the police said on Sunday.

Jeetrai Hansda, a contractual faculty member at Jamshedpur Co-operative College, was arrested from a village in the Sakchi area of Jamshedpur on Saturday night, an officer said, adding that the teacher had been evading arrest.

“Hansda has been booked under various sections of the IPC and the IT Act, and the process to forward him to judicial custody is currently under way,” Rajeev Singh, the officer-in-charge of the Sakchi police station, said.

The teacher, a resident of Parsudih here, had allegedly written a post in support of a beef party organised by the IIT-Madras students, prompting the Akhil Bharatiya Vishwa Parishad (ABVP), the student’s wing of the RSS, to file a complaint against him, the officer said.

The beef fest was organised at IIT-Madras in 2017 in protest against the restrictions imposed on cattle trade by the Union government.

The student’s union had demanded the sacking of Mr. Hansda. The post was then deleted, the officer added.

Asked for a reaction, Kolhan University Vice-Chancellor Shukla Mohanty said Mr. Hansda was a guest faculty member at the Graduate School College for Women when he posted the message on Facebook. He was later absorbed as a contractual teacher in the women’s college.

Show-cause notice

“A show-cause notice was served on Mr. Hansda after receiving a complaint about his objectionable Facebook post, He then apologised,” Mr. Mohanty said, adding that Mr. Hansda had joined as a contractual faculty member at the Co-operative College recently.