A Left Front worker from Purba Medinipur’s Panskura has gone missing since the Left youth and student organisations’ Nabanna March earlier this week in Kolkata.
According to Bengali daily Sangbad Pratidin, Deepak Panja had left for Kolkata at around 9 am in the morning with a group of left cadres and workers. However, while everyone returned at the end of the day, Panja did not.
His family has been unable to reach him. Local police has reportedly taken up the matter. But Panja, an illiterate, is yet to be traced. Local MLA Ibrahim Ali has blamed the ruling TMC and police in the entire incident.
The Nabanna march on Thursday turned violent as police took to water cannons and lathicharging after the protestors tried to break through the barricades.
CPIM’s youth wing DYFI, alongwith nine other student and youth organisations, had called for the Nabanna expedition to demand jobs and education for all from the TMC-led West Bengal government. However, the rally had heated up from the very beginning.
It created a huge ruckus as many protestors baffled the police and reached in front of the West Bengal secretariat before scheduled time. Four DYFI members were reportedly detained.
The protestors tried to make their way inside Nabanna when the deployed police stopped them, leading to a massive confrontation. All the DYFI members were arrested from the spot.
Later on the day, the police had put heavy barricades at Kolkata’s Dorina Crossing to stop the march from crossing river Hooghly and proceeding towards Nabanna in Howrah.
The protestors, though, paid no heed to the security officials and tried to uplift the barricades to make their way through, leading to a massive confrontation.
Reportedly, the DYFI and youth members of the Left Front parties hurled stones, footballs and oranges towards the deployed Rapid Action Force (RAF) and other police officials.
Failing to turn away the march and disperse the protestors, the police resorted to lathicharging, while simultaneously trying to disrupt the crowd with water cannons.
Many protestors were injured and taken to nearby hospitals. Some of them were seen lying down on the ground to avoid a direct contact with water coming out of the canons.