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Berhampur University V-C receives threatening calls

BERHAMPUR: The Berhampur University campus became tense on Monday following a series of threatening calls to Vice-Chancellor (VC) of the university Bijay Kumar Sahu.

The anonymous caller threatened to ‘kill’ Mr Sahu if he did not resign within next two days. The caller seemed to be irritated over disciplinary actions taken by Mr Sahu against a number of teaching and non-teaching staff of the university after he took charge last year. All calls were made to the cell-phone of the VC. The first threatening call came at 12.58 pm. It was followed by two more calls of the same nature by the same person at 1.11 pm and 1.29 pm. The last call of more than two minutes’ length was also recorded by the VC as evidence. The caller also named Ashok Panigrahy, a former professor of Botany department who has been recently suspended by the VC following allegation of sexual harassment brought against him by a girl student.

The Registrar of the university filed the official FIR with the police regarding the threatening calls. Police started investigation to track the three numbers from which the calls were made. One of the numbers has been tracked to a public call centre near Christian hospital in the city. The investigating officials are confident of nabbing the anonymous miscreant as he also used a mobile number to make one of the calls.

Meanwhile, the VC sent copies of the FIR to the Governor and Chancellor of Orissa universities, the State Home Department, the Director-General of Police (DGP) and the State Education Department.

Speaking over the phone, Mr Sahu said some elements who were irked by the strict disciplinary and administrative actions taken by him in recent past may be behind this threat. During last few months he had taken action against 28 staff members for irregularities in their action.

He said the caller had a Telugu accent although he was speaking in Oriya. He said he was not going to bow down to this kind of pranks by miscreants. Prof. Sahu took charge as VC of the university in July. After taking charge he unearthed many irregularities in the university administration. Many employees were demoted and some were expelled from their jobs.

It may be noted that suspecting possibility of an attack on the Vice-Chancellor of the Berhampur University the Berhampur police intelligence had suggested deployment of one platoon of armed police force in front of his official residence on the campus in November last year.

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