FIR against professor for FB post comparing women wearing mangalsutra to 'chained dogs'

Shilpa Singh, an assistant professor at VM Salgaocar College of Law in Goa has fallen in trouble due to a facebook post where she compared women wearing mangalsutra to chained dogs.

An FIR has been registered against her for allegedly outraging religious feelings with deliberate and malicious intention.

The case was filed on a complaint by Rajiv Jha, of Rashtriya Hindu Yuva Vahini's Goa unit.

Earlier, ABVP sought her termination and complained Singh promotes socially hateful thoughts about a particular religion.

In his complaint, Jha referred to an April 21 facebook post by Shilpa Singh in which she had challenged the patriarchy and dogma by comparing ‘mangalsutra’ to a 'chained dog'.

Shilpa Singh teaches Political Science at Panaji's VM Salgaocar College of Law.

Hours before the FIR was lodged, Singh had apologised on Facebook, writing that her words from the post were clipped and taken out of context. 

Singh has also approached the police for purportedly abusive and threatening messages she is receiving after Jha's abusive post on October 30.

Singh said that her comments were a critique of the phenomenon of patriarchy.

She has also filed a counter-complaint against Jha in which she has accused the latter of intimidation, outraging her modesty, and also accusing him of inciting a lynch mob against her.

The development comes days after the college sent a written response to a complaint against Singh by ABVP, the students’ outfit of RSS, stating that it does not have a 'locus standi to raise objections about her teaching, and that no termination order will be issued against her. ABVP in its letter had asked for her termination.

Jha has cleared that he has filed the complaint in personal capacity.

SP (north Goa) Utkrisht Prasoon said that FIRs have been registered based on the complaints by both Jha and Singh. Both complaints will be probed, Prasoon said.

Meanwhile Political Science teachers from different Goa institutions had subsequently backed her right as a teacher to provoke students with various political theories.