Following the arrest of a Trinamul Congress Chatra Parishad (TMCP) leader for harassing the Aliah University Vice Chancellor, the CPI-M state secretary, Md Salim, has said that it was orchestrated by the ruling party to divert attention from the protests in that university, demanding justice for Anis Khan.

Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has condemned the incident and called upon the chief secretary, seeking a full update on the matter by 1 p.m. tomorrow. He tweeted “worrisome scenario reflected in a video in viral circulation. Such state of affairs where law violator rogue elements have their way with no fear of law is certainly fearful scenario for law abiders.”

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A video, that went viral two days earlier, showed Gyassudin Mondal, a TMCP leader and the outgoing president of the party’s student unit in Aliah University, harassing and insulting Vice Chancellor Mohammad Ali by surrounding him and threatening him using expletives. He had entered the VC’s room with outsiders. The Techno City police today arrested him from New Town. The act of insulting the VC has enraged the students of the university who have declared they would hit the streets in protest against this incident. The accused, Gyasuddin was rusticated from the university a few days back for alleged extortion on campus.

Md Salim alleged that this was orchestrated by the TMC as it wants to divert the attention from the protests that are being carried out by the students of Aliah University, seeking justice in Anis Khan’s murder case. He said the Mamata Banerjee government has time and again cracked down on Aliah students, used police force and goons against them, ensuring their protests remain constricted within the college campus.

Commenting on allegations that police, despite being called to the university during the incident, failed to turn up on the instructions of two TMC ministers, Salim said “This is not the first time that the Mamata Banerjee regime has done this with Aliah University. Since the creation of the university, Mamata and her aide Mukul Roy, along with other party members, have resisted its conversion from a madrassa to a University. The land in Park Circus, on which the University was set up, was allotted since pre-Independence time for the higher education of women. When I was the minister during the CPI-M government, we took the land from the government to set up the educational institution.”

He said that even after Cyclone Amphan damaged a portion of the property, the state government refused to help renovate it despite requests from the university students and authorities. “The police and the TMC ministers are involved in this harassment of the vice-chancellor. We have seen such crackdowns on universities and their students in Kashmir and elsewhere. This is condemnable.”