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Police did not break law in JU student crackdown: CP

by IBNS 18 Sep 2014, 12:38 am

Kolkata, Sept 18 (IBNS): Amid a raging protest over the alleged assault on Jadavpur University students by police while breaking an agitation against the vice-chancellor of the varsity on Tuesday night, Kolkata police claimed they had dealt with the situation extremely patiently and following rules and no one was assaulted or molested during the crackdown.

While students alleged that some of the girls were molested and their clothes torn and that women police were not used for handling them, Kolkata Police commissioner Surajit Kar Purokayastha said they had not violated any rule.

"Police was extremely patient in the given situation. No law was violated and you can even see that in the footage that there was no lathicharge. There were some outsiders in and around campus and with arms. What was handled was in a very sensitive manner," said Kolkata police commissioner Surajit Kar Purkayastha.

He said several women police were also present along with senior officers. 

He said in the situation that was prevailing police acted in the best possible manner.

Students, however, scoffed at the statement of the commissioner.

"You can go and see for yourselves that the clothes of the girl who was taken away by the police were torn," said a student. The students said police came with outsiders too accusing presence of ruling Trinamool Congress party men.

At least 35 students of Kolkata’s prestigious Jadavpur University (JU) were arrested at around 2 am on Tuesday night for staging protests in front of the main administrative building within the campus and vice chancellor Abhijit Chakraborty, whom they labelled as a Trinamool Congress man.

 Students alleged that their members were dragged, manhandled and girls molested by the police officers and those who cracked down on them. They claimed activists from the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad, the student's arm of West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress, also came in with the police.

 The JU students were staging a sit-in demonstration at the main administrative building of the university since last Wednesday demanding an unbiased probe- with neutral panel sans ruling party members- into the alleged molestation of a second-year student by students from the university some time back.

 A large group of students also surrounded  vice-chancellor  Abhijit Chakraborty and other faculty members on Tuesday.

 The  vice-chancellor had called the police to disperse the agitators.