Madurai: In a shocking incident, a journalism professor was stabbed by a Ph.D scholar right inside her room in the department on the Madurai Kamaraj University campus at Nagamalai Pudukottai in the suburbs of Madurai on Tuesday, for reportedly not being re-appointed as guest lecturer.

University sources said Jothi Murugan (32) is currently doing Ph.D in the Centre for Film and Electronic Media Studies in MKU. In the morning at about 10.15 am, when Jenefa Selwyn, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Journalism and Science Communication, was just in for the day, Murugan, who had earlier been a guest lecturer in the same department, barged in, locked the door and stabbed her multiple times, they said.

Jenefa rushed out and fell flat on the floor, while Murugan was standing. Hearing her scream, the students in the nearby classroom rushed and found Murugan holding a knife. They caught hold of him and handed him over to the police.

Murugan, his Ph.D guide, said was apparently depressed over not being appointed as guest lecturer again in the journalism department. “Newly married, he seems to have told his wife working as a PG assistant in a government school that he was employed in the university as a lecturer and when she came to know that he was jobless, she had left her,