Campus violence returned to Bengal colleges even as a desperate Trinamool Congress Chatra Parishad attacked Opposition students’ wings, mainly the ABVP, leaving one dead and scores of others injured in a number of districts where preparations for students’ elections are under way.
Violence erupted in Birbhum, Bankura, Burdwan and Coochbehar when TMC backed goons attacked the Opposition students groups mainly the ABVP from filing their nominations, sources alleged. About a dozen students were injured at Kalna where an ABVP leader Sushant Pandey got a fractured head after Trinamool goons attacked him with rods and lathis.
At Khairashole, the Trinamool attacked ABVP workers with bombs and bullets leading to a skirmish. A person was killed and another injured in the incident. Clashes broke out at Gangajal Ghanti and Onda in Bankura, sources said, adding hundreds of Trinamool men armed with dangerous weapons attacked ABVP supports preventing them from picking up their nomination forms. A violence case was also reported from Coochbehar. A student was abducted and later released, police said.
Student politics in Bengal had seen abnormal rise in violence leading to deaths and forcing the Government to postpone college elections for the past one year or so. This after a police sub-inspector was shot dead at Garden Reach in Kolkata when the Congress and Trinamool Congress students’ groups clashed against each other. When asked to comment on the Friday’s violence Education Minister Partho Chatterjee first feigned ignorance and then said those who were “failing to give a chase are taking snaps and raising a hue and cry.”