PANAJI
The management of VM Salgaocar College of Law may have stood by its faculty member, but Panaji Police Inspector Suddesh Naik on Monday afternoon booked an FIR against Shilpa Singh, assistant professor at the Miramar Law College.
The FIR booked for offence under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code quotes a post by Singh on social-networking site Facebook in April this year as the cause of action.
Naik, who registered the FIR, accuses her in it of "deliberately and knowingly" uploading the post publicly, which outraged the religious feelings of the complainant, Ravi Jha from Ponda.
Earlier last month, Singh had come under attack from the right wing, including RSS affiliate student body ABVP, who wrote to her college demanding her dismissal in 24 hours laced with a threat of an agitation.
ABVP's accusation against the political science professor was that she allegedly used anti-religious material in her online lecture.
The college, however, refused to comply with the demand after an in-house 'Grievance Committee' probe found no merit in the ABVP allegations.
Singh also drew widespread support from political science professors from across Goa who debunked the complaint and questioned ABVP's locus standi to interfere in academic matters and proceedings inside classrooms.
The tirade launched against Singh by the right wing however took another dimension when Jha dug out her FB post from April and filed a complaint alleging she was "insulting" Hindu religious sentiments.
On Monday, the Panaji police booked the FIR.
