As many as 304 people related to the world of education, including two Nobel winning American economists, have written to President Draupadi Murmu, criticising Visva-Bharati Vice-Chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty for targeting Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, who has a house near the university in Santiniketan.
The house, Pratichi, is built over 1.38 acres and last April, the university claimed that 13 decimals (0.13 acre) of the land belonged to it and that the economist was occupying it illegally. The Nobel laureate went to the Calcutta High Court, and the matter remains in court.
“Prof. Chakrabarty has been responsible for various atrocities. He was responsible for the unlawful suspension of students and teachers, illegal termination of the employment of faculty members, officers, and other staff, denying them of their freedom of speech, and suppressing dissent in any form, by indiscriminately issuing show-cause notices, charge-sheets, and illegal orders of suspension and termination,” the group, including Nobel laureates George A. Akerlof and Joseph Stiglitz, wrote to the President of India.
