Aligarh: The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has lost three faculty members and as many as five retired professors to COVID-19 infections in last seven days.
Thirty faculty and staff members have tested COVID-19 positive and have been admitted to AMU’s Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College.
According to AMU officials, noted critic and senior faculty member at the Urdu department, Prof Maula Bakhsh Ansari, 58, faculty member of the Sunni theology section, Prof Ehsanullah Fahad, 50, and in-charge of leather and footwear technology section at University Polytechnic AMU, Saeed Uzzaman, 51, were serving faculty members who lost their lives in the past two days.
“Prof Ansari had been admitted to a private hospital and died within a few days on Wednesday. He had not been tested for Covid-19, but he had symptoms of the disease,” former director of the Urdu Academy AMU, Rahat Abrar was quoted as saying by news agency IANS.
Ansari was working on six projects of books on stylistics, critical studies and cultural studies, which are yet to be published.
Also, five retired faculty members have succumbed to COVID-19-related complications in the past one week. Prof Rizwan Husain, 84 (English), Prof Vakeel Jafari, 90 (physics), Prof Humayun Murad, 80 (zoology), Prof Saeeduz Zafar, 75 (former chairperson of the department of psychology), and Prof Iqbal Ali, 70 (former principal, University Polytechnic AMU) were the victims.
“Rizwan died of a cardiac arrest but had been in isolation at home after his daughter-in-law tested positive. His wife and son, too, have been infected,” Husain’s brother-in-law Prof Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi, also a faculty member at AMU, was quoted by the agency.