10 injured, SFI points assault finger at rivals

Siliguri, Jan. 17: Ten SFI supporters, six of them girls, were allegedly beaten up by Trinamul Congress and Chhatra Parishad members at Siliguri College today.

The SFI alleged that its supporters were attacked when they were coming out of the campus after collecting nomination forms for the student union election. The CPM’s student wing has been the dominant union in the college for 16 years.

“The Trinamul Chhatra Parishad members, most of them outsiders, did not even spare our girls. A number of them were assaulted. We have informed police about it in detail,” said Sourav Das, the district secretary of the SFI.

The clash is the latest in campus violence reported across the state and in north Bengal in particular. On January 5, the principal of Raiganj University College in North Dinajpur was beaten up allegedly by Trinamul supporters.

Trinamul and Chhatra Parishad have denied the charges. They said they had protested when an SFI supporter, who is not a student of the college, entered the campus violating election rules laid down by the institution. They said SFI kicked up a fuss because of their protest.

The atmosphere charged up minutes after the college had started distributing the nomination forms around 10.30am. Supporters of the SFI and Trinamul and CP had assembled on either side of the gate shouting slogans against each other. Only students of the college who will collect nomination forms were being allowed to enter after showing their identity cards.

The election to the 45 seats of the students’ union has been scheduled for February 4.

The SFI alleged that the Trinamul and the Congress’s student wing — the two parties are partners in the state and allies at the Centre — had initially prevented one of their supporters from collecting nomination form.

“Trinamul and CP supporters threatened him with dire consequences if he contested the election as an SFI candidate. When we asked the police to intervene, they spoke to Trinamul supporters who did not let the boy go. He felt so intimidated by their gherao that he refused to collect the form later,” said Sagar Sharma, the unit secretary of SFI in the college.

Around 50 policemen and combat personnel had been posted on the campus since morning.

“After the distribution of the forms ended at 2am, our supporters were coming out of the gate when a group of around 50 Trinamul and CP supporters attacked them. They were punched and beaten up,” said SFI leader Das.

The police separated the two groups and barricaded the area in front of the gate.

“But some of the Chhatra Parishad and Trinamul supporters broke the barricade and attacked us again. They know they will not be able to win the election, so they have resorted to the tactics of violence,” Das added.

The SFI blocked Hashmi Chowk for 45 minutes demanding the arrest of the culprits. An FIR has been filed against the attackers.

Trinamul claimed that the SFI was levelling “baseless allegations” to cover up an outsider’s entry.

“All allegations levelled against us are false. The SFI has no supporters in the college and they are forcing students to contest election as their candidates. Today when we spotted an outsider queuing up for the form, we protested. The SFI then started shouting that we had assaulted them. We have lodged an FIR against the SFI worker from outside,” said Nirnay Roy, the district president of the Trinamul Chhatra Parishad.

Additional superintendent of the police Amit P. Javalgi said he was looking into the charges levelled by both sides.