New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University said that no course on ‘Islamic terrorism’ was proposed at its academic council meeting. The statement was made by the university while replying to a notice sent to it by the Delhi Minorities Commission (DMC). DMC chairman Zafarul Islam Khan informed this. According to him JNU also provided the DMC with a copy of the minutes of the 145th Academic Council meeting on May 18, where the concept paper on the proposed ‘Centre for National Security Studies’ was placed for discussion.
Registrar Pramod Kumar told to DMC chairman “there was no course on ‘Islamic terror’ proposed in the academic council.”
However, the DMC chairman said that the concept paper does include ‘Islamic terrorism’ as part of ‘key areas’ of the proposed centre which will first do the research before teaching them.
While maintaining that the proposed Centre is a good initiative and the country needs it, the commission wrote back to JNU that the introduction of ‘Islamic terrorism’ as a subject of research and teaching at the Centre is ‘flawed’ and will ‘deteriorate’ the communal atmosphere on the campus and beyond and will create wrong notions about Muslims. Instead of introducing “Islamic terrorism” as a subject of study and teaching at the proposed Centre DMC advised to adopt “religious terrorism” to cover all forms of terrorism using religion to spread terror.