West Bengal erupted in anger against the custody death of 22-year-old Students' Federation of India (SFI) leader, Sudipto Gupta on Tuesday. Thousands of agitated citizens broke into protests on Wednesday, irrespective of their social status and political affiliations.
Protestors took out rallies and flooded social networking sites with contempt messages against the State Government. To add to the embarrassment of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who also heads the Police Ministry, the State Human Rights Commission (HRC) took suo motu cognizance of the matter and directed the Government to conduct an Additional Commissioner-level probe into the incident.
"The rights panel has also decided to hold its own high-level inquiry into the incident," Joint Secretary Sujay Haldar said.
"Needless to say, the two findings will be matched at a later stage" another senior HRC official maintained.
Sudipto was allegedly pushed out of a bus in which he was being taken after being arrested from a leftist student wings' agitation programme against the Government's decision to put college elections on hold. The police version of the incident, that was later peddled by the Chief Minister as well, said that Sudipto, who was sticking his head out of the bus, hit a lamp post, resulting in the fatal injury.
"This was a ploy to influence the police and medical findings," CPI(M) leader Biman Bose said.
Sudipto, an MA Political Science student at Rabindra Bharati University, is survived by an ailing father and a sister. He had lost his mother last year.
Seven more students, including SFI leader Joseph Hussain, were injured on Tuesday in a baton charge by the police on the rally.
Hussain had to undergo an eight-hour long, life saving operation at the Calcutta Medical College Hospital. Doctors said his right hand, was still in danger of being amputated.
Apart from the death of the student, what irked the people was a loaded statement from the Chief Minister, who, while expressing her condolences for Sudipto's death said such deaths were common among her partymen also.
She said: "I repeatedly warn them against sticking their heads out of the buses and trains, because hitting your head against lamp posts is very dangerous."
Banerjee had gone to the hospital morgue on Wednesday morning to express her condolences to the friends and kin of the victim, but had to beat a hasty retreat in the face of angry sloganeering by the restive crowd.
By way of expressing grief she said, "every death is unfortunate." a statement that did little to douse the flame of protest.
In a spontaneous reaction to Banerjee's statement Bose said: "The Chief Minister tried to salvage her image but failed to do so by making a loaded statement to save the face of the police. She is trying to make the incident pass off as an accident ignoring the complaints of the eyewitnesses."
He also demanded a judicial inquiry into the cause of Sudipto's death.
The left Front had called a 12-hour bandh in South Kolkata on Thursday.
Among those who condemned the custody death were director Mrinal Sen, actor Badshah Mitra, artist Samir Aich etal. "I must say that in this case the Chief Minister who rules the State is responsible" Sen said while Mitra said the pouring crowd along the 8-km stretch of his final journey to the funeral ghat was the testimony to the mass outrage.
Those inside the bus said that Sudipto was insisting that he be taken to the jail while the police men in the bus were beating him and trying to force him out of the bus. In the melee he was flung out of the running vehicle and his head hit the lamp post. To rub salt to injury the injured student was even kicked and beaten up while he was bleeding profusely, witnesses alleged.