Jinnah row: After uproar in AMU, now its founder's portrait removed

After the uproar over Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the Aligarh Muslim University, now a fresh incident of removing the portrait of AMU's founder Sir Syed Ahmad Khan has come to the fore. A portrait of AMU founder Sir Syed Ahmed Khan has been removed in PWD's guest house in Aligarh. There are also objections been raised by another Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader to Jinnah House and Jinnah Hall in Mumbai.

Mumbai BJP MLA Prabhat Lodha has demanded that Jinnah House and Jinnah Hall should be converted to cultural centres and that Jinnah's name must be removed from them, as reported by Zee News.

Earlier on Saturday, Aligarh Muslim University students continued the indefinite dharna and boycott of academic activities for the third day, demanding action against the right-wing protesters, who entered the campus and demanded the removal of Jinnah's portrait from the student union's office.

Police on Wednesday had resorted to lathicharge, lobbed teargas shells to disperse AMU students demanding the arrest of protesters who had barged into the campus,

The Jinnah row started after BJP's Aligarh MP Satish Gautam wrote to AMU raising objections to the portrait. The University said portraits of all life members of the student union hang there. Jinnah, a founder member of the University Court, had also been given this honour before Partition. AMU vice-chancellor Tariq Mansoor on Friday visited the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital where three of the students injured in the police lathi-charge are being treated.
agitating over the portrait of the Pakistan founder.

Meanwhile, AMU Teachers' Association (AMUTA) has sent a memorandum to President Ram Nath Kovind asking him to "urgently institute" a high-level judicial probe into the incident.

Jinnah, a lawyer and politician, was the founder of Pakistan and also served as the leader of All-India Muslim League from 1913 until Pakistan's independence on August 14, 1947.