The Pune campus office of Prof Suhas Palshikar, who resigned as NCERT adviser, was attacked on Saturday by a group of persons.
The Pune campus office of Prof Suhas Palshikar, who resigned as NCERT adviser in the wake of the huge row over a cartoon of BR Ambedkar in school text books, was attacked on Saturday by a group of persons.
Police said Palshikar was unharmed in the attack and three persons have been detained.
A Republican Panther of India spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the cartoon amounted to an "insult" to the Dalit icon.
Police said the persons involved in the incident had been invited by Palshikar for discussion in his office after they raised objections to the cartoon. They later damaged furniture at his office located in Pune University campus, it said.
After the attack, Palshikar said personally he was not in favour of pursuing any criminal proceedings against the persons involved and that this has been communicated to the Registrar as well as the Vice Chancellor.
"I am not in favour of pursuing any criminal proceedings against the person involved (in the attack), because it is the person behind who are important....not the persons concerned because they are simply instruments," he added.
Palshikar, a former Head of Pune University's Department of Politics, had resigned after the uproar in Parliament over the cartoon row yesterday which led HRD Minister Kapil Sibal to tender an apology.
He was a member of the HRD Ministry's Textbook Development Committee, which had approved the Class XI social science textbook that carried the cartoon.
Political scientist Yogendra Yadav, who was the chief adviser of the committee and who also resigned, condemned the attack, calling it "tragic and sad" and also "farcical".
Pointing out that Palshikar had during the last 10 years been a teacher to him on Ambedkar and taught him about Ambedkar, Yadav said "such attacks are nothing but farcical".
"For someone who has taught me Ambedkar, for him to be attacked in the name of Ambedkar...nothing can be more farcical, tragic and sad than this," Yadav told a TV channel.
Ambedkar's grandson Prakash Ambedkar said the Father of the Indian Constitution himself wouldn't have opposed the cartoon. Prakash, however, said he always feared a political controversy will erupt over the cartoon at some point of time.
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