The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) had called for a protest march to Jadavpur University against the alleged attacks on Union Minister of State and BJP MP Babul Supriyo. But their march was cut short by almost a kilometre by police barricades. A large force of policemen was also present on the scene. At the same time, teachers of Jadavpur University formed a human chain in front of Gate No 4 where the students were protesting against the violence that erupted on September 19.
"If the ABVP come here they have to step on our dead bodies to reach our students," said one of the teachers outside Gate No 4 of the university. Thankfully, nothing as dramatic happened and the ABVP demonstrators dispersed after failed attempts to break through the barricades.
"The protesters first tried to break the barricades. Then they started pelting stones but this did not go on for long. Soon they stopped and the rally dispersed gradually," said Swapan Kumar Dawn, a witness to the ordeal. The students inside Jadavpur chanted "anti-fascist" slogans and protested against BJP State President Dilip Ghosh's continued derogatory remarks against the university since September 19.
The ABVP's Kolkata faction's call for the protest was controversial on its own. The student organisation's Secretary for the Kolkata region put out a post in Bengali on Facebook which said that the ABVP will "skin anti-nationals" and called for a march to protest against the "assault of ABVP activists by anti-social Naxals of Jadavpur University". The Jadavpur University incident has triggered dozens of protests — both from the left and the right-wing organisations — over the weekend.
The vandalism and violence happened in the backdrop of Union Minister of State Babul Supriyo's visit to the university on September 19. He was invited for a freshers' meet organised by the ABVP. The left student organisations demonstrated against his presence calling him 'fascist' and thus began the scuffle that led to Babul being detained on campus by the students for three hours. The minister was physically assaulted, his hair was pulled and he retaliated. Things went out of control in no time and the Governor had to intervene to get Supriyo out of the university.
As he was about to be rescued, some unidentified individuals vandalised shops outside the campus that the students frequent, assaulted students who were present there and burnt bicycles outside Gate 4. Some of them, allegedly, got in and vandalised the union room. Bystanders confirmed that these people were definitely not students. "There were people around 30 years old. Some even looked 40. They were definitely not students. I have seen them loitering around the locality before," said Ananta Choudhuri, a local businessman who was witness to the whole ordeal.
