Academics ‘shocked’ at PM’s late response to the incidents

New Delhi: A group of around 200-odd academics, including professors from leading institutions like Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Madras Institute of Development Studies, IIT-Delhi and IIM-Calcutta, on Friday expressed “shock” at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “late response” to the incidents of intolerance, even as the RSS criticised returning of awards by intellectuals as a “politically-motivated” action out of frustration of pseudo-secularists, who were using the Sangh as a “punching bag”.

Maharashtra CM Devendra Phadnavis also took a dim view of the trend and urged the intelligentsia to help the government with “constructive criticism”.

“We as social scientists, scholars, teachers and citizens, feel  concerned about the lynching at Dadri, and  murders of scholars and thinkers and wish to register our protest,” a statement by 250 academics said.