Classroom ‘wedding’ with student puts Bengal college prof in a spot
Poulami Roy Banerjee & Ashis Poddar | TNN 3.01.2025
Kolkata/Haringhata : An assistant professor of applied psychology at Bengal’s Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology has been sent on leave & ordered to face an inquiry over a set of viral videos showing her decked out as a bride & exchanging garlands with a first-year student during a purported “wedding psychodrama” inside a classroom.
Payal Banerjee, the teacher seen in the videos, said Wednesday that she had resigned and would be initiating legal action against “a jealous colleague” allegedly out to malign her. She said her students con ceptualised the mock wedding as part of a freshers’ welcome event on Jan 16 and that she played along, not knowing a scandal would erupt over videos allegedly circulated by her unnamed colleague. “They (the students) requ ested me to play the main character, and I agreed.
Other faculty members knew about it and agreed to the programme; no one objected then. My first-year students and I acted per the script. There was nothing serious about it,” she said. An e-invitation designed for the “psychodrama” mentions Jan 9 as the date for the “haldi ceremony” and Jan 14 for “mehndi and sangeet”. The “wedding day” was Jan 20. The events purportedly took place inside the same classroom at the institute's campus in Haringhata, around 60km from Kolkata. Interim vice-chancellor Tapas Chakrabarty said the inquiry committee consists of five faculty members.
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