Kalasalingam University has asked P. Ayyappan, a first year B. Tech student affected with vitiligo, to rejoin the classes on Monday.
Parents of the speech and hearing-impaired boy, who was admitted to the six-year integrated course, complained that the university authorities did not allow him to attend the class citing complaints from fellow students and their parents about the white patches on his body.
The boy, who was confined to hostel, had to leave the university campus on Wednesday.
However, Chancellor, K. Sridharan, told The Hindu on Friday, “We had neither suspended nor dismissed him from the university. All that we wanted was to get a second opinion on the medical certificate he had produced to state that vitiligo was not infectious.
“We do not have any medical knowledge on vitiligo and hence wanted to get a clarification on it so as to convince other students and their parents on their apprehensions.” There seemed to be some communication gap that kicked up the controversy, Mr. Sridharan said.
The university never wanted to discriminate against the boy and there were no second thoughts on helping him pursue his dream of engineering.
“In fact, we introduced the engineering course under speech and hearing-impaired programme only with the service motive of helping such students,” he claimed.
The boy’s mother, P. Hemavathi, said that she received a call from the university on Friday morning asking her to bring Ayyappan back on Monday.
Move welcomed
The Leucoderma Awareness Movement has welcomed the university’s decision to allow the boy to continue his studies.
Its secretary K. Umapathy said that the authorities had a very important role in ensuring that the boy was not discriminated against by anyone on the university campus.
“We are not against Kalasalingam University. But, we had to fight for the boy’s cause, because we feared that sending out Ayyappan because of this aesthetic disorder would set a wrong precedent. It might affect the studies of around 20 lakh other vitiligo-affected students now in schools and colleges,” he said.
The government should issue a circular to educational institutions to prevent recurrence of such incidents, he added.
