Kashmir University on Tuesday asked the heads of its departments and directors to seek prior permission of the authorities before inviting any foreign dignitaries, three days after it sought information about a US national who is said to have “delivered lectures” in the varsity in January-February this year, as per a report by Hindustan Times.
As per the report, the varsity said that the Union home ministry has sought information about Jeremiah D Graham, a US national, whose visit earlier this year “might have been in violation of his visa requirements.”
The report suggests that the university administration said it was clueless about Graham, his field of expertise, or whether the lectures were delivered or not.
On Friday, it had issued a circular seeking information about the date of delivering the lecture, topic of discussion, number of students and teachers and whether an invitation was sent to the person.
“It has been brought to the notice of the authorities that Mr Jeremiah D Graham, a US national, has delivered lectures in the University of Kashmir, Srinagar during Jan-Feb, 2022. All the departments are requested to kindly provide the information,” the circular signed by chief proctor Imtiyaz Khan said.
Khan said the information was sought after they received a communiqué from the union home ministry.
“The home ministry has asked us whether he has addressed any class in the university. It is not specific to us only but other places have also received such communication, including SKUAST (Sheri Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology),” Khan said, as per the report.
Meanwhile, the report says that the registrar of SKUAST, Prof TH Masoodi denied having received any such information from home ministry or any such person delivering a lecture in the agricultural university. Khan said they had vacations in January.
“We didn’t hold any class or there were no invited lectures by him. The administration asked me to make sure any such thing has not happened because sometimes a department holds interactive lecturers at its own level when a specific expert comes,” he was quoted as saying in the report.
“That is why I had issued the circular and have received written responses from most of the departments saying no such person was contacted or any lecture held. Only a couple of departments are pending,” he added.
“Verbally, every department has told me that we have not entertained such a person on the campus,” he said, as per the report.
The varsity on Tuesday issued another circular, asking the departments to inform beforehand about the visit of any foreign dignitary.
Khan said that the second circular was issued to make sure that people coming for the purpose of tourism do not come into varsity and deliver lectures.