The Calcutta High Court on Monday permitted to organizers, including junior doctors to hold their protest procession, scheduled on Tuesday in the demanding justice for the gruesome rape and murder of the woman doctors at R G Kar Medical College hospital on 9 August.
More than 40 organisations, including junior doctors’ different bodies like West Bengal Junior Doctors Front (WBJDF) would hit the road by bringing out the procession between Esplanade and Rabindra Sadan on Tuesday in protest against the incident.
Besides junior doctors’ bodies, sex workers, transgenders, rickshaw-pullers, mental health workers, and people of different processions, fans of two football clubs – Mohun Bagan and East Bengal – would take part in the rally.
The Kolkata Police (KP) didn’t give permission to the organisers of the event showing reasons for traffic snarls in the city on the eve of the Durga Puja festival.
The organisers moved the HC requesting its intervention so that the programme could be held on their prescheduled day, Tuesday.
During a hearing in the Bench of Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj, the state government today urged the organisers to inform about the number of participants in the protest programme otherwise it could trigger problems in connection with traffic control management.
Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, senior lawyer on behalf of the petitioners, while replying to the state government’s arguments said, “We can say the number of our participants but how can it be possible to figure out the number so early if common people join the protest?”
Virtually pulling up the state government, Justice Bharadwaj said, “Is it possible to prevent if around 10 lakh people take part in the procession peacefully? It’s their constitutional right to show protests. Can the state prevent this constitutional right showing reasons for traffic management?”
The state government argued that it has the power to control different programmes for the sake of citizens and raised the impositions of Section 144 in the Esplanade area.
“Impose Section 144 in the entire city so that no rallies or processions could be held. Do the organisers of Durga Puja know about how many spectators would come? Lakhs of people come down on the streets during the Durga Puja festival and police are doing crowd management skillfully for years,” Justice Bharadwaj said.
He has directed the organisers to engage an adequate number of volunteers to avoid any kind of trouble related to control and management of the programme.