Ten former students of the Film and Television Institute (FTII) have returned their national awards in support of the present FTII students.
Film directors Dibakar Banerjee, Paresh Kamdar, Lipika Singh, Nishtha Jain, Anand Patwardhan, Kirti Nakhwa, Harshvardhan Kulkarni, Hari Nair, Indrani Lahiri and Rakesh Sharma have returned their awards in protest of the FTII issue and also against the killing of rationalists and writers like Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.M.Kalburgi.
Commenting upon FTII students returning their national awards, FTII chairman Gajendra Chauhan had earlier in the day said, "Getting awards is a matter of respect and returning the respect is not a good decision. I would appeal to them not to take any such decision."
The students who were protesting for the last 139 days demanding the removal of Gajendra Chauhan as its chairman called off their protest today, but vowed to continue it at various levels.
The students have been opposing the appointment of Chauhan and four others to the governing council of FTII, branding them propagandists for the BJP government.
