By Joydeep Sarkar
Kolkata: Students at Kolkata’s prestigious Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) were on September 27 subjected to a brutal attack by workers claiming to be affiliated to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Eight students were seriously injured in the attack, and a librarian and several teachers who tried to intervene were also left bleeding. Over 150 students sustained injuries of varying degrees, say students.
At least four students displayed injuries commensurate with those perpetrated with knives. At around 7 pm, the institute’s gates were shut and some of the attackers were removed from the premises, police sources said.
Several students reportedly had their mobile phones and other possessions snatched.
A meeting by an RSS body
On Sunday, a meeting organised in the name of the Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat, a supposed consumer awareness organisation affiliated with the RSS, began on the main theatre stage of the film institute.
Student union president Blossom Hazarika said that none of the students had been informed about the meeting and the union had no knowledge of how the organisation – seemingly unconnected with cinema – had been allowed to hold a meeting there.
Based on students’ accounts, at around 2 pm, workers claiming to be part of the BJP arrived and began forcibly removing students who were at the hall, pushing them aside and grabbing them by the neck.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
