Protest against ABVP in front of the university’s gate. (Partha Paul)ABVP workers on Monday clashed with police and pelted stones after their protest rally to Jadavpur University (JU) in Kolkata was stopped midway, leaving three policemen, including a woman police personnel, injured, police sources said.
The ABVP, students’ wing of the RSS, also claimed that seven of its members were injured in the clash when police threw stones at them, a charge denied by the police.
The ABVP’s protest march to the JU was against the heckling of Union minister and BJP MP Babul Supriyo last Thursday. However, the police stopped the march at Jodhpur Park crossing, nearly 2 km from the JU gates, by putting barricades on the road. As police did not allow them to proceed towards the university campus, ABVP members squatted on the road and shouted slogans against the TMC government and Left-backed students’ unions.
According to police, ABVP members tried to break the barricades and pelted stones at them. “Three police personnel, including a woman cop, who were on duty have been injured by stone-pelting. We will lodge a case against the troublemakers,” a senior officer of Kolkata Police said. They lifted the road blockade after an hour.
“We have taken out the rally to send a clear message to the ultra-Left students that we will not tolerate an assault on a Union minister. We have come here to protest against that incident,” said an ABVP leader.
Later in the day, students of the university also held a programme outside its campus to protest the vandalisation of a building allegedly by ABVP workers on Thursday.
On Thursday, Supriyo was heckled and manhandled by a section of students at JU. The students had gheraoed Supriyo for over five hours, stopping him from leaving the campus. Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar had to rush to the campus in the evening to escort out Supriyo. On Sunday, JU students’ union had filed a complaint with the police against the Union minister for ‘misconduct’.
