The Mizoram IAS Association on Friday backed state higher and technical education director Nazuk Kumar, who recently faced a backlash from a student organisation to relinquish her post as the director of the department.
Expressing concern about the steps taken by the student organisation against Kumar, the association said in a statement that the main reason for the students seeking the director’s replacement was due to the apprehension for probable controversy during the forthcoming selection of candidates for technical courses under the auspices of higher and technical education department if a non-Mizo officer oversees the selection process.
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“The Association would like to express its honest opinion that the controversy if there have so been, in the selection of candidates for technical courses could not be ascribed to commission and omission solely of a non-Mizo officer as head of the department of Higher and Technical Education. It is rather a matter of adherence to given norms,” the statement said.
It said that anyone can avoid such controversies if one abides by the rules and regulations strictly laid down by the government for this purpose.
“The question of being Mizo or non-Mizo does not arise at all in an inadvertent or deliberate mishandling of such a selection process. The apprehension on the aforesaid premise is, therefore, considered baseless,” the statement said.
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It said that the attempt to deny an officer her rightful place merely on ground of unfounded suspicion of her future performance is utterly in bad taste and still worse is the attempt to oust her from her legitimate official position on the pretext of her being non-Mizo is most likely to be tinged with a communal colour which will not be in the best interest of the students in particular and of the Mizo society in general.
The irrational act on the part of the student body can also have unnecessary wider repercussions thereby tarnishing the image of the Mizos, the association said in the statement.
Association belief that it will be for the sake of justice and in the larger interest of the public to create a congenial atmosphere for Nazuk Kumar to continue work in her new assignment peacefully.
” It is, therefore, the Association’s strong belief that it will be for the sake of justice and in the larger interest of the public to create a congenial atmosphere for Nazuk Kumar to continue work in her new assignment peacefully,” the statement added.
Kumar was barricaded by hundreds of Mizo Student Union (MSU) functionaries to prevent the officer from attending office on Tuesday.
The students demanded that the director be replaced by a Mizo officer as past incidents showed that controversies and certain issues used to erupt over selection of candidates for technical courses whenever higher and technical education department was headed by non-MIzo officers.
MSU president J. Lalmuanzuala had said that they have no personal hatred towards Kumar for only being a non-Mizo but opposed to her assignment as the director of such an important department, which concerns the career of students.
The 29-year-old IAS officer of AGMUT cadre was transferred from Chandigarh to Mizoram in January as an additional secretary in the state Information and Communication Technology department.
Recently, she was given a director post in the state food, civil supplies and consumer affairs department and then transferred to the higher and technical education department after three days.