Kolkata: After yesterday's massive student demonstration in the city, college and university teachers today lent a hand to their cause holding a protest-march against the Jadavpur University Vice-Chancellor's calling the the police inside the campus to break up a gherao.
Teachers owing allegiance to the Left-minded West Bengal College and University Teachers' Association (WBCUTA) marched from Golpark to Jadavpur super-market walking past Jadavpur University, a distance of two km, holding placards which condemned the action of Vice-Chancellor Abhijit Chakraborti.
Speaking from a makeshift stage at the end of the march, one of the participants in the procession said, "We have never seen teachers asking police to take action against their own students."
"We have seen bigger agitations in the past and there was a time when the protests were very aggressive, but even then the police was never called in inside the campus of universities or colleges," he observed.
"Students are like our children. Such action should not have been taken," said another participant.
Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCP), the student wing of the party, has called a march to the Raj Bhavan from the Academy of Fine Arts in downtown Kolkata tomorrow to protest against 'anarchy' being spread in educational institutions.
"We will agitate against those who are trying to create anarchy in educational institutions. We have asked all our units to participate in the rally," TMCP president Sankudeb Panda said.
The TMCP leadership would give a memorandum to Governor K N Tripathi demanding restoration of normalcy at the JU and resumption of classes, TMCP sources said.
The TMCP would not use any flag of the union during the march, the sources said.
In the afternoon, state Higher Education Minister Partha Chatterjee went to the residence of the girl, who was allegedly molested by some students in a hostel room within the university compound.
Though Chatterjee did not talk to the media, the father of the girl later said that the minister had assured him that they would get 'justice'.
"The minister told me that we will get justice. We repose faith in what he said," the father, whose identity is not being revealed for maintaining their privacy, told newspersons outside their Salt Lake residence.
The Minister then went to meet the Governor at Raj Bhavan and stayed there for nearly one hour and 20 minutes.
Neither Chatterjee, who did not speak to the waiting media outside, nor Raj Bhavan sources divulged the reason for the long meeting or what transpired.
Meanwhile, leader of TMC Parliamentary Party in the Lok Sabha Sudip Bandopadhyay, in a word of advise to the agitating students, said that they should keep faith in Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
"I ask the students to concentrate on studies," Bandopadhyay told a vernacular news channel here.
"They should keep faith in Mamata Banerjee, if any assault was perpetrated on the girl, she will not be deterred from taking strong action," he said.
"Instead of going with those who are now instigating them, the students should repose their faith in Mamata Banerjee," he reiterated.
