Many people, including policemen, were injured in pitched battles intermittently fought at various locations of Kolkata and Howrah between the men in uniform and students protesting against the rape and murder of the lady doctor at a medical college in Kolkata. Several protesters were taken into custody.

The students under the banner of a relatively obscure Paschim Banga Chhatra Samaj — with apparent blessings of the Opposition BJP — marched towards the State Secretariat Nabanna to demand the resignation of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee when clashes took place.

Initial jostling turned into skirmishes with the police repeatedly bursting tear gas, charging water jets and resorting to lathicharge as the charged up agitators that included many women refused to relent and turned aggressive. The pitched battles continued for more than five hours giving the police a harrowing time, sources in the administration said, adding additional combat forces and RAF had to be called in from the neighbouring districts.

At various places people profusely bleeding from head were seen being carried away by their co-agitators to the hospitals. Similarly the policemen who often got isolated were also attacked. At Babu Ghat a crowd of agitators badly beat up two policemen with lathis, rods, bricks and even shoes. Some even spit on them while journalists covering the incident tried to intervene by appealing the people not to take law into their own hands.

Intensity of the protest was such that the agitators who were quickly joined by swarms of political activists, moved dangerously close to the seat of State power, Nabanna with the police armed with riot gear having a trying time to push them back.

The scene was almost same on both sides of the Hooghly River as the agitators broke through firmly erected barricades one after the other at Mahatma Gandhi Road, College Square, Princep Ghat, Esplanade, Hastings, Santragachi, Vidya Sagar Setu leading to Nabanna, Howrah Maidan, Sarat Chatterjee Road and elsewhere shouting the hitherto familiar slogan "we want justice."

At Princep Ghat and Mahatma Gandhi Road the police chased away the agitators who were trying to break the cordons. At Kona Express Way too, the police fought intermittently with the agitators who were trying to enter Nabanna area from Howrah side.

In the melee more than 50 people, including policemen were hurt, sources said, adding that the count could go up as "more information from other zones are still awaited." The police had detained more than 350 people, the BJP sources said.

While the police accused the agitators of resorting to violence first by throwing bricks the opposite side said the students got agitated as news spread that four of their leaders who had been organising the movement for the past several days had "mysteriously gone missing" as they had allegedly been picked up around midnight on Monday.

Incidentally most of the agitating doctors at various medical colleges and the members of the civil society remained indifferent to the Tuesday's march but continued their cease work at their workplaces, sources said. The Tuesday's clashes were the culmination of fortnight long protests by the people from all walks of life against the brutal rape and murder of a lady doctor at the RG Kar Medical College Hospital and allege effort by the Kolkata Police and the powers that be to shield the real guilty.

The Left Front earlier detached itself from the movement with Meenakshi Mukherjee on Sunday night telling that neither the Students' Federation of India nor the Democratic Youth Federation — the students' and youth arms of the CPI(M) — would join the movement.

Meanwhile, in protest against the "atrocities perpetrated by the police on a peaceful march," the BJP on Tuesday declared a 12-hour bandh in Bengal.

Union Minister and State party president Sukanta Majumdar, urged the people to "participate in the general strike" from 6 AM to 6 PM "so as to knock some shame in the police and the State Government.

However the State administration said that as it was the policy of the government not to allow any kind of strike, "government will not allow any bandh on Wednesday", asking the people not to participate in the strike.

Alapan Bandopadhyay, the chief advisor to the Chief Minister said that "all the transport services will remain operational, and shops, marketplaces and other business establishments will remain open."

Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said that "despite the act of shame in RG Kar Hospital and despite the Government taking all the steps some vested interests have made it a political agenda to pull down an elected Government … and the strike is a part of that … as strikes are out of fashion in Bengal there will be no bandh in on Tuesday."

He also said that the "BJP's efforts to purchase a dead body — for its political gains —through the violent march on Tuesday has been failed by the police which despite all provocations acted in a restrained manner and did not fire a single shot … depriving the opposition to do politics with dead bodies."