A professor of Jadavpur University in Kolkata has alleged that she was roughed up by a few women activists of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) near the campus for protesting against the remarks made against the institute and a particular community by a BJP camp member.
Doyeeta Majumder, assistant professor of the English department at the university said on Facebook, “On my way back from an anti-CAA rally, I ran into a saffron outfit at 8B, and got totally roughed up and hit by BJP “bhodromohilas” (gentlewomen)”.
“The saffron speaker was spewing naked hate speech…for a good few minutes, then turned and pointed at the campus and started saying ”this University is the root of all evil, they all chant Allahu Akbar every day”. I snorted out loud, and shouted ”mithye kotha” (lies lies) twice.
That is all it took. In seconds I was surrounded by a mob of mashima-like (middle-aged) women who started pushing me down and hitting me. A young man tried to protest, he was roughed up too. Ultimately I was dragged kicking and screaming by two (presumably BJP) men who kept saying “Didi ar jhamela baraben na, chole jan, chole jan” (didi please don’t create further trouble, leave now). The professor also said that she has filed a complaint with police along with two of her students, who had tried to help her and “got beaten up worse”.
“Those women….were literally baying for my blood. I am fine, no lasting harm done, only shuddering at the infinite horrors in store for us,” she wrote on Facebook.
However, the BJP leadership denied any involvement in the incident. They said several ‘ultra-Left supporters’ had staged agitation in the vicinity of a party meeting, near the campus, on Monday, but its workers maintained restraint.
According to the BJP sources in state, party’s Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta, Lok Sabha MP from Bongaon, Santanu Thakur, and senior state BJP leader Shamik Bhattacharya were among those present at Monday’s meeting.
“As we were conducting a meeting, some supporters of ultra-Left parties came near the venue and started raising slogans. They even pushed our cadres. But we maintained restraint. None of our cadres were involved in any assault,” Bhattacharya said.
(With inputs from PTI)