Rampur (UP), Sep 18 (PTI) SP leader and former MP Tazeen Fatma on Friday hit back at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, saying Mohammad Ali Jauhar was a “great freedom fighter” and a prominent national leader.
Her remark comes after the chief minister’s alleged recent remarks that the Mohammad Ali Jauhar University was named after a “person responsible for the Partition of the country”.
Speaking at the university’s foundation day function, Fatma, jailed Samajwadi Party (SP) veteran Azam Khan’s wife, said those who had misconceptions about the leader should read history.
“The university was established in the name of Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar. Those who have any misunderstanding about this name, I want to ask them to read old history. Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar was a very great freedom fighter and a very big leader,” she said.
Fatma has served as secretary of the varsity and its founding Trust.
Recalling Jauhar’s advocacy for India’s freedom, she said, “He had said at a conference that we want freedom, complete and total freedom, and I do not want to be buried in a slave country.” Referring to the recent demolition orders concerning 38 buildings of the university, Fatma said students have shown courage by staging a sit-in at the university gate and facing pressure from the police and administration.
“The students had said that even if the university buildings were demolished, they would continue studying here, sitting under the trees and on the ground,” she said.
Fatma said the university has faced many difficulties since its establishment and congratulated its students and faculty members for facing them.
She also thanked people from different parts of the country who, she claimed, had supported the students’ protest against the proposed demolition of the university buildings.
“People of our city stood with the children who were sitting on the dharna. I also want to say that without any discrimination on the basis of caste or religion, the entire country opposed the demolition of this university,” she said.
Fatma expressed gratitude to those who came from different parts of the country to support the students and helped build public opinion against the demolition of the university. PTI COR KIS PRK
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