Braving heavy showers, thousands of students assembled at Nandan cultural complex here on Saturday to protest against the police crackdown on students of Jadavpur University in the wee hours of Wednesday on the campus.
The city’s Esplanade area was chock-a-block with students from various colleges. . They were on their way to meet West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi at Raj Bhavan.
The police allowed only seven student representatives to meet the Governor while the rest stayed next to the Gandhi Statue at Mayo Road at the Esplanade. On being assured by Mr. Tripathi that action would be taken if anyone was found guilty, the students decided to withdraw the sit-in demonstration at Esplanade.
“We will have a meeting on Monday at the University campus to decide our next step. However, until then classes will continue to be boycotted,” said Chiranjit Bose, who is part of the delegation and added that Mr. Tripathi had requested them to restore normalcy in the University.
A communication from Raj Bhavan said that the Governor who is the Chancellor of the University advised the students to maintain discipline and restore peaceful academic atmosphere in the University from Monday.
At around 3.30 p.m., the Esplanade echoed with the slogan Hok Kolorob (let there be noise) raised by students who demanded the resignation of University Vice-Chancellor Abhijit Chabkrabarti for calling in police on campus and disrupting a peaceful agitation.
Bearing posters and donning body paint condemning the Vice-Chancellor, the rally taunted Kolkata Police Commissioner Surajit Kar Purkayastha for claiming that the students were ‘armed’. The protestors said that if guitars were considered as arms, only then can they be regarded as ‘armed’.
The rally also saw the participation of alumni of the University and theatre and film personalities. The city traffic was affected; as the rally, coupled with the ongoing taxi strike, inconvenienced commuters.
University website hacked Earlier in the day, an apology note from the Vice-Chancellor appeared at the University’s official website, which was soon taken off as the University Registrar claimed that the website was hacked. The page on the Vice-Chancellor bore the message “I am sorry”.
“This is a very unfortunate incident as the relationship of the faculty and students is cordial,” Mr. Chakrabarti said and alleged that “external forces had hacked into the website.”
