Calcutta University professors, staffs allegedly assaulted by TMCP

Kolkata: Professors and non-teaching staffs of the Calcutta University (CU) were on Wednesday allegedly heckled by activists of the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad, the students' union of the ruling party, a charge which was denied by the latter.

"Save University - Save Democracy", a forum of teachers and non-teaching staff, for the last few days were agitating over the abolishment of the post of financial officer (FO) and demanded reinstatement of Harisadhan Ghosh, who was removed as FO a few days back.

"We have been agitating for the last few days over the demand of reinstatement of the financial officer Harisadhan Ghosh. We demanded that a white paper be published regarding the alleged scam that is being talked about. But nothing of that sort has been done," Shyamal Chakraborty, member of Save University- Save Democracy, said.

"The members of TMCP today all of a sudden came here and attacked us. They heckled several professors and when the VC came here to stop them from assaulting us he too was heckled by them," Chakraborty said.

Three members, including two professors, were injured in the melee.

When contacted, Calcutta University (CU) Vice-Chancellor Suranjan Das declined to make any comment.

Senior leader of the TMCP unit in the CU Sumit Das, however, denied allegations.

"We didn't assault anyone. They have been trying to create disturbances inside the campus for last few days. So we took out peaceful meetings inside the campus. We were heckled by them. Two of our students were also injured," Das told PTI.

Meanwhile, state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee said that the state Education Department would not tolerate any indiscipline in the campus.

"We will not tolerate any indiscipline in the campus. I have spoken to the VC and have asked him to submit a report regarding today's incident to the principal secretary to the higher education department. I have asked VC whether he was heckled or not, he said he was not," Chatterjee told reporters.