Mohammed Umar Farooq, a post-graduate student at Staffordshire University who was studying the terrorism, crime and global security master’s programme was wrongly accused of being a terrorist, reports The Guardian. The student was reading a textbook for the course titled "Terrorism Studies' in college library and was interrogated by a complaints officer undercover.
The incident happened in March this year. The 33-year-old was questioned on homosexuality, Islamic State and Al Qaeda. He said that he emphasised his disagreement with radical ideologies but yet the conversation was reported to the security guards for raising 'too many red flags'.
Farooq says that he was reading the textbook and minding his own business. When he heard of the accusation, he laughed it off in disbelief.
The academic institution later apologised to him. The person questioning Farooq posed as a fellow student but was in fact a complaints officer.
The student says he feels so 'unsettled' since the episode that he stopped attending the course. He says he is worried about getting in a police-list and being probed without his knowledge. "This could happen to any young Muslim lad. I had to fight back,” Farooq said to The Guardian.
The university has said that it was working on the guidelines set by the UK government's Prevent anti-extremist activities initiatives. But it added that the guidelines were broad and had lacked details. It said that the officials had very free hours of training.
Earlier, a 14-year-old in a London school was questioned about Islamic extremism during a classroom discussion.
