New Delhi:

Naima Khatoon has been appointed as the Vice Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), making her the first woman to hold the top post in over 100 years, sources said on Monday.

Naima Khatoon was appointed after receiving approval from President Droupadi Murmu, who is a Visitor to the University, they said.

Permission from the Election Commission of India (ECI) was also sought in view of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) being in place, they said.

“Naima Khatoon, Principal, Women’s College, has been appointed as the Vice Chancellor of AMU for a period of five years. The ECI has stated that the commission has no objection from the MCC angle to the proposal related to the appointment of the AMU VC subject to the condition that no political mileage be derived from it,” a source said.

Naima Khatoon, who completed her PhD in psychology from AMU, was appointed as a lecturer in the same department in 1988 before being elevated to professor in 2006. She continued there before being appointed the principal of the Women’s College in 2014.

Founded in 1875, Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College became AMU in 1920, following the Aligarh Muslim University Act.

In September 2020, AMU completed 100 years as a university, becoming one of the oldest universities in India. The university has had no woman vice chancellor so far.

In 1920, Begum Sultan Jahan was appointed as the AMU chancellor. She continues to be the only woman to have held the post.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh:

More than 300 women students of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) were taken to a hospital today morning with symptoms of food poisoning, authorities said. They started showing the symptoms after dinner at their hostel the previous night.

By the afternoon, almost all of them were discharged from the university’s Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, they said.

“The girls started coming in early morning and we have treated about 300 girls. Once they showed improvement, we discharged them. We are constantly monitoring the health of all the girls,” the hospital’s chief superintendent, Dr Haaris Manzoor Khan, said. They were residents of the Begum Azeezun Nisa Hall, he added.

The Begum Azeezun Nisa Hall of the AMU is a women’s hostel with a capacity of accommodating 1,500 students.

As the news of the incident spread, district authorities rushed a team of health officials to take samples of food stored at the hostel’s dining area and kitchens.

District health officials and food inspectors have collected food samples from the hostel, an university official said.

An AMU spokesperson told Press Trust of India that a three-member committee has been set up to investigate the matter.

Office bearers of the AMU Teachers’ Association (AMUTA) will hold a meeting on Wednesday evening to discuss the situation.

AMUTA secretary Obaid Ahmad Siddique told reporters that the “enquiry into this serious matter would only be meaningful if it is time bound”.

The second issue which has to be probed is the ad hoc manner in which “tenders for food supplies were being cleared in recent months by university authorities”, he said.

Mr Siddique claimed that if a high-level probe is carried out, it is “likely to reveal major irregularities in food material purchase procedures”.

He also alleged that in the past few months, students staying at other hostels of the university have complained about the quality of food, but such complaints were not addressed.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)