On Tuesday, the ‘Nabanna Abhijan’ protest march descended into chaos in Kolkata, with demonstrators hurling stones at the police and smashing barricades at Howrah Bridge. The demonstrators were demanding that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee resign over the RG Kar hospital rape-murder case. The police deployed water cannons, tear gas, and lathicharges to disperse the demonstrators.
Latest updates on Nabanna Abhijan protest march:
- According to a post on X by Kolkata Police, four people were detained in advance of the march on suspicion of preparing to “orchestrate large-scale violence” during the Nabanna Abhijan. They were a part of a “conspiracy of murder and attempted murder,” according to the police. Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP had earlier claimed that the four student activists vanished after midnight.
- Pictures that went viral on social media showed police employing lathicharge, water cannons, and tear gas to break up crowds as chaotic scenes broke out at Kolkata’s Howrah Bridge, where they had set up barricades to impede the protest march to the state headquarters, the Nabanna.
- According to a post on X by Kolkata Police, four people were detained in advance of the march on suspicion of preparing to “orchestrate large-scale violence” during the Nabanna Abhijan. They were a part of a “conspiracy of murder and attempted murder,” according to the police. Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP had earlier claimed that the four student activists vanished after midnight.
- There are now more than twenty locations with iron and aluminum barricades close to the state secretariat. To make it easier for the demonstrators to scale the buildings and cross over, police have also smeared oil on the barricades.
- Along the roads leading to the West Bengal secretariat in Howrah, more than 6,000 police officers have been stationed. Quick Reaction Teams (QRTs), Rapid Action Force (RAF), and Heavy Radio Flying Squads (HRFS) are among the additional forces that have been called in from other areas.
- The demonstrators’ movements are being tracked by robocops and drones. At the protest location, there are also VAJRA anti-riot vehicles.
- As to the West Bengal Police, the protest march was deemed “illegal” and they did not obtain any request for authorization to march in the direction of Nabanna.
- Paschimbanga Chhatra Samaj, an unregistered student group, is the name of the protest march. Sayan Lahiri of Rabindra Mukta University, Subhankar Halder of Kalyani University, and Prabir Das, a master’s student at Rabindra Bharati University, are the organizers of the event. It has called for Mamata Banerjee’s resignation, the death penalty for the offender, and justice for the 31-year-old trainee physician.
- The Left student bodies and doctors who have been denouncing the incident since August 9 have disassociated themselves from the ‘Nabanna Abhijan’ protest march.
- The BJP, according to the ruling Trinamool Congress, was behind the protest march, and its officials intended to provoke the police to fire on the demonstrators on Tuesday. However, the BJP has vehemently denied the accusations, saying they would support the movement even though they were not connected to the rally.
A second-year postgraduate student, aged 31, was discovered semi-naked inside the seminar hall of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9. The following day, Kolkata Police volunteer Sanjoy Roy was taken into custody.
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