Senior Trinamool MP and former Union Minister Saugata Roy has criticised the recent attacks on principals of educational institutions in the State.
Mr. Roy, a former professor of Asutosh College, said he wished he were dead before having to see students heckling their teachers in such a manner. “It makes me sick in the pit of my stomach… I wish I were dead .... so that I did not have to witness such incidents,” he said at a function at the South Kolkata College.
There have been violent incidents against principals at various colleges including Rampurhat College and Raigunj College and some of these were seen live on the audio visual media. In many of these incidents, Trinamool supporters and local leaders had an active role to play.
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The latest such incident was reported a fortnight ago when the principal of the Jhargram Raj College was attacked by the district vice-president of the students’ wing of the Trinamool Congress. Some of these incidents, like the one involving a former TMC legislator (who attacked a lady teacher) had caused acute embarrassment to the party and the Mamata Banerjee government.
Mr. Roy, who was on Friday appointed a member of the Chief Minister’s Advisory Council (on industry and information technology) suggested that principals unite against campus violence. He felt that a student who has raised his hand against his teacher has forfeited his own right to remain in an educational institution.
When contacted, a principal who had been at the receiving end of such an attack said that he did not believe that students can commit such acts. “They are misled and misguided .... The Trinamool Congress party is being used by some self-seekers to further their agenda,” he said, adding that those who attend classes regularly will never indulge in such action.
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“It is either an outsider or a student who attends college only sporadically who will resort to violence against a teacher,” he said.