A day after the ruling Trinamool Congress shook off some of its chit fund blues by winning the Bongaon and Krishnaganj by-elections, an apparently emboldened band of party goons returned to their old ways this time attacking the prestigious Kalyani University in Nadia district, beating up senior officials, professors, sending some of them to hospitals besides locking up Vice Chancellor Rl Hangloo, a strong disciplinarian, whose removal, the militant Trinamool employees’ union Siksha Bandhu, had been asking for.
This even as repeated SoSs sent to the SP and DM’s office yielded no result as Hangloo and his team of senior professors remained caged inside his office after the staff union locked them from outside till reports last came in well beyond sunset. Kalyani falls in Bongaon Parliamentary constituency. “We were conducting important meeting at the V-C’s office when hordes of people many of whom were outsiders barged inside the campus. They were shouting slogans and carrying Trinamool Congress banners” Professor Alok Ghosh said.
Another professor who “slipped out of their hands” and ran for his life into the V-C’s room said “there were hundreds of them attacking and beating up the security officer mercilessly. The women were also involved in the attack and they took the lead in beating senior officers while the men stood guard.” While the attack started at 1.30 pm no help had come till five hours later and repeated calls made to the police produced no result sources said adding the V-C had contacted Governor KN Tripathi.
When contacted Education Minister Partho Chatterjee said he was “looking into the matter and will spare none if anyone is found guilty.” However, he would not utter a single word on emergency rescue operations. Neither did he spare a word on whether he was instructing the DM or the SP to take necessary actions.
Hangloo was a strict disciplinarian appointed by the new Trinamool Congress Government with a view to bring order in the campus. “However, when the V-C started clamping down on corrupt staff and blocked holes whereby they could fleece the students and guardians” the Trinamool staff union hit back by demanding his resignation” a professor said adding repeated appeal to the Education Ministry to discipline the erring staff went unheard.
“Bengal has gone to dogs under this regime which thinks electoral victory by polarising the population is the final license and there is nothing beyond that. One wonders for how long this will go on. We can only keep our fingers crossed and pray for better days which is not going to come anytime soon” said AK Banerjee a former principal of Presidency College .