A day after chaos prevailed on the Jadavpur University campus, two FIRs were filed, one by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Agnimitra Paul and another by Left-leaning student union, AFSU (Arts Faculty Students Union), at Jadavpur police station today.
The tension that boiled inside the institute spilled on the streets as rallies by unions of both RSS-affiliated student wing and Left and ultra Left students’ wing were organised to protest against the yesterday’s incident.
While the fashion designer-turned politician Agnimitra Paul, according to sources, filed an FIR against the alleged heckling of the BJP leader, the students’ union has lodged a complaint against the alleged vandalism by the members of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
All hell broke loose in and around the campus on Thursday afternoon after Union minister Babul Supriyo was heckled, manhandled and shown black flags by a section of students of the university.
The minister after being detained at the campus amidst wide protests by the agitating students was rescued by Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar. On the other hand, a group of ABVP members allegedly vandalised the campus, while the minister and the Governor both were still present at the university.
Members of Durga Vahini, the women’s wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, allegedly joined in the act. The rampage continued for about an hour and was stopped only after the Union minister and governor left the campus. The mob left a trail of devastation, vandalising everything that came on their way. Chanting slogans of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, the ABVP supporters vandalised the union room, burnt tyres, painted ABVP on the walls and coloured the signage outside the room in black.
A photographer and a student suffered head injuries in the ruckus, JU students alleged. While, the Left-affiliated union members of the university blamed a large number of outsiders roped in by the ABVP students for the vandalism, the RSS-backed students denied the charges.
“There were so many agitations on the campus but protest was staged in a peaceful manner. Our university has never witnessed such scale of vandalism by students. They not only vandalised the union room but also took away the bags and the money kept in the students’ bags. The police present at the spot were silent spectators,” Debraj Debnath, the students’ leader, said.
Another student said, “Earlier, there were Trinmul Congress-affiliated unions at our campus. But whenever any outsiders tried to intrude in our campus, the students and the teachers together resisted them. However, yesterday’s vandalism was beyond our imagination. We had never dreamt that someday our campus will be rampaged by such fascist forces in front of our eyes.”
Denying the charges of vandalism in the campus, Durgakanta Roy, an ABVP activist, said, “We had invited Union minister Babul Supriyo as the chief guest at our freshers’ programme. The Left-backed students’ organisations had started a malicious propaganda on the campus and social media platform to prevent the MP from attending the event. When our programme was being inaugurated yesterday morning, Agnimitra Paul was present there. The students of Leftist organisations gathered in front of the stage and Agnimitra Paul was physically assaulted, harassed and pulled by her hair. We have already lodged an FIR at Jadavpur police station.”
Condemning the attack on MP, he said, “Babul Supriyo was heckled and pulled by his hair by some of the agitating students. He was also shown black flags and slogans were raised against him. When he was going out after attending the programme, again they started staging an agitation and forcibly prevented him from going out. When we requested the VC to allow the policemen to come inside the campus to provide protection to the minister, he did not allow it. He should have allowed the police and administration to make a safe passage for him when the situation was spiralling out of control.”
Suranjan Sarkar, ABVP state joint secretary, said, “ABVP does not believe in any violent or destructive ideology. It is the Left-leaning radical organisations which caused the ruckus and assaulted Babul Supriyo. ABVP is not involved in any kind of vandalism.”
Students of the two factions organised protest rallies from different corners of the city. The ABVP members staged a sit-in demonstration at Mayo Road demanding immediate resignation of the Vice Chancellor Prof Suranjan Das, who is under treatment at a private city hospital.
They also demanded arrest of the culprits who allegedly manhandled the union minister at the university campus yesterday. Simultaneously, two rallies were organised by the student unions of the university.