When contacted, Raza slammed the premier media institute for being "unprofessional" in its conduct by cancelling his session that was scheduled on April 7.
Raza, who is also a documentary film maker, however, said he did not have "sufficient data" to relate the cancellation to his having made a documentary on the Gujarat riots as reported in a section of the media.
"They were giving evasive reasons for the cancellation. It was very weird, irritating and unprofessional," he said.
IIMC in a statement said that the cancellation of the inaugural session of the workshop, which was to be addressed by Raza, and the valedictory session on April 7 and 8, was in view of "official pre-occupations' of Director General Sunit Tandon.
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It added that the guests invited for both functions were informed that the events had been cancelled due to the aforesaid reason. "It is therefore inaccurate that this was done without giving a reason".
Raza further added that he was to deliver a lecture on how emergence of new data changes old conclusions in Science and was in touch with the authorities of the journalism institute since March 26.
"On April 1 I got the formal invite. So I don't have a formal conclusion on why it was cancelled at the last moment. It doesn't happen normally and has never happened to me in any national or international workshop," he said.
The institute has been embroiled in controversy in the recent past over a campaign by a section of the students and the faculty on the issue of removing certain course directors over "erosion" in its academic quality.