3 more held for Kolkata NEET protest violence, arrest count rises to 14
West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari alleged the involvement of foreign Islamic fundamentalist forces behind the violence during a “Cockroach” protest in Kolkata on Friday when students’ wings of various Left parties organised a rally and a night-long sit-in protest against question paper leaks in the NEET exams.
This, after the Kolkata Police arrested 14 people, including Md Afroz, a Trinamool Congress worker, in connection with Friday’s violence. Saying that the police had identified about 70 people connected to Friday’s mischief, the Chief Minister said, “very tough action will be taken against the trouble-mongers who are members of fundamentalist Jamat organisations.”
Saying that none of those identified were students the Chief Minister said that the reason why the accused people resorted to violence was their frustration that stemmed not only out of the TMC’s defeat but also “because my Government is investigating into the affairs of the unregistered Khariji Madarsas as well as the Government’s decision to cancel the spurious OBC list --- following a High Court order --- filled by the previous Government with underserving people.”
The impugned OBC list that largely contained members of the minority community was questioned and nullified by the Calcutta High Court. The police had earlier said that among the accused persons, Md Azad and Md Afroz were arrested from the Durgapur Expressway while they were trying to sneak out of Bengal. Afroz allegedly had close links with TMC MLA Abdul Khaleque Molla from Kolkata’s Metiaburuz constituency. The MLA, however, denied the claim.
The other arrested accused are Irfan Khurshed, Arshad Ali alias Sajid, Md Moinuddin, Md Alamgir alias Raju, Imran Ahmed alias Gopi, Khalid Reja alias Rinku, Zamir Ahmed alias Minku, Mohsin Khan, Dipak Bhowmick alias Vicky, Shabaz Khan, Sk Md Salman Hussain, and Johiruddin Mal. All 14 people were on Sunday remanded to two-day police custody.
Out of those arrested, at least 5 persons were chargsheeted by the police on earlier occasions also, police said.
The police claimed that Friday’s protests were organised by the various political parties and student-youth organisations, such as the SFI, AISF, AIDSO, AIDYO, CPIM(L), DYFI, AISA, PDSF, AFSA, DSF, ISU, APDR. Meanwhile, in a fresh round of controversy, a number of FIRs were lodged at various police stations of Kolkata against prominent Bengali actress Srilekha Mitra for posing before the cameral holding an “uncouth” cartoon of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi.
“The picture is not worthy to be shown in public … We want this lady to be arrested because she has insulted the Prime Minister, not considering that it is a constitutional post and that he commands respect all over the world,” BJP leader Keya Ghosh said, adding “if she is not arrested we will start an agitation.”
Mitra, however, said that she had “taken the small poster from some protester’s hands and posed with it … I did not even looked at it properly because there was no time to look at it as there was a lathi-charge going on behind me.”
