Teltumde has been accused of having links with the banned CPI (Maoist) and having handled funds for the outfit in association with other accused in the case.
The faculty of the premier management B-school of the country, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad have shown support for professor Anand Teltumbde, from Goa Institute of Management, who was named as an accused in the Elgaar Parishad at Bhima-Koregaon case.
Days after the Supreme Court rejected Teltumde's appeal to quash FIR filed by Pune city police against him, various Ambedkarite organisations had come together calling for charges being dropped against him. Now even IIMA faculty have joined the support group.
A letter signed by some of top IIMA faculty reads: We are writing as concerned citizens and members of the IIM Ahmedabad faculty about the injustice being meted out to one of our illustrious alumni, Prof. Anand Teltumbde, under false charges. Besides being an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, he has been a visiting faculty at IIMA, IIT, author of 26 books and a noted scholar of caste-class and public policy issues. As faculty members, we are proud not only of Prof. Teltumbde's achievements in the corporate world but also of the extremely rich scholarship he has produced on a diverse range of topics, including the Constitution of India. We are alarmed that a public intellectual who has made selfless contributions to the nation through his scholarship, can be under the threat of imprisonment on the basis of extremely questionable and prima facie motivated evidence."
Calling for the immediate release of professor Teltumbde, senior faculty at IIMA professor Sebastian Morris told DNA, "Anand should be released and he has no involvement in whatever the story is. My fear is that since this computer has been sealed in a way he does not have recourse to it, the evidence may get cooked up. We are sure that he would have no anti-national agenda at all. We know it as he is one of our alumni and has always been working for human rights and civil liberty which is part of democracy and in no way, he can be incarcerated like this. The false claims have made the court more lenient towards the police."
Concerned about the repression faced by persons who speak for social justice, the professors through the letter, further stated: We and our students continue to benefit immensely from Prof. Teltumbde's work. As citizens, we admire and benefit from Prof Teltumbde's principled defence of civil rights in the pursuit of public interest. We see the abuse of the already draconian, UAPA to threaten and intimidate professor Teltumbde with flimsy evidence as a threat not only to one individual but all of us, who firmly believe in the Constitution, the rights and obligations it confers. Prof. Teltumbde has contributed significantly to the cause of social justice and his actions have been in the interest of strengthening Indian democracy. We are concerned about the repression faced by persons who speak for social justice, and those who serve as role models for the aspiring youth."
The letter has been signed by professors Navdeep Mathur, Ankur Sarin, Rakesh Basant, Sebastian Morris, Akshaya Vijayalakshmi, Reetika Khera, Pritha Dev, Chinmay Tumbe, Rama Mohan Turaga, Poornima Varma, Anish Sugathan, Kavitha Ranganathan, George Kandathil, Premilla D'Cruz, Vaibhavi Kulkarni, Smita Premchander, Sukhpal Singh, Vijaya Sherry Chand, Ernesto Noronha, Aruna Divya T., Pradyumana Khokle, Vishal Gupta and Tathagata Bandyopadhyay.
The cops have said that the organizers of Elgaar Parishad, a one-day conference held in Shaniwar Wada on December 31, 2017, had Maoist links. Cops also claimed speeches at the event triggered violence at Koregaon Bhima the next day.
Teltumde has been accused of having links with the banned CPI (Maoist) and having handled funds for the outfit in association with other accused in the case.
Police Version
According to Pune police, Teltumbde played a role in fomenting the violence at Bhima-Koregaon on January 1 last year that left one dead. The SC has refused to quash the FIR against Teltumbde
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