Kolkata, Oct. 28 -- Police personnel entered the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) campus late on Tuesday night, with vice-chancellor (V-C) Santosh Ajmera citing security concerns following a torchlight march by protesting students. The students' union questioned the deployment, describing it as an attempt to intimidate protesters and establish police surveillance on the campus.
According to the students' union, more than 60 police personnel entered the campus at 11.30 pm on October 27 and gathered near the guest house behind the students' hostel to meet the vice-chancellor. In a statement issued on Wednesday, the union said the deployment came nearly five hours after the torchlight march had ended at 6.30 pm and questioned the need for a large police presence.
Ajmera said the protest had "taken an ugly turn" late on Tuesday after a day of peaceful speeches and gatherings. "Nearly 50 students, carrying lit mashals, doing targeted and intimidating sloganeering for nearly one hour in different parts of the campus, including residential areas, created an atmosphere of fear and anxiety among all," he said in a statement. He said the procession could have caused serious damage to institutional property and endangered lives on the campus. "They can't just take the law into their own hands and try to hijack the entire institution," he said.
The vice-chancellor also referred to alleged incidents of verbal abuse, intimidation and vandalism at his office and other premises, as well as physical abuse against him. Six students were rusticated in connection with these incidents, but they continued to remain on the campus despite the orders, he alleged. Citing the safety and wellbeing of people residing on the campus, Ajmera said the police were called in late at night because the protest was taking a "very wrong direction".
The students' union, however, questioned the timing of the deployment and said the authorities had not shown similar urgency when students reported alleged attacks and threats. It described the torchlight march as an exercise in peaceful democratic dissent and opposed any permanent police presence or surveillance on the campus.
"We condemn the midnight police mobilisation. We oppose the permanent deployment of police inside the campus and reject the surveillance and militarisation of educational institutions," the union said in a statement.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.