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Monday, January 14, 2008

[mukto-mona] JU vandalism-myth

 
Telegraph today carried a news (pasted below) rubbishing the accusation by the CPI(M) that on 4/5 April last year, followers of Naxalite students who trounced the SFI at the Jadavpur University had indulged in vandalism at the office of JU Karmachari Samsad, a CPI(M)-run body. Ganashakti, CPI(M)'s servile daily, Aajkaal and Chobbis ghanta TV channel ( reportedly enjoying good rating as a TV channel , a proof how unreliable is the rating methodology) carried the news of vandalism. One B Prasant, Peoples Democracy correspondent, blew up the piece of yellow journalism  ( you won't find it now in the PD archive, obviously to cover up the Goebblesian Act). This man is a former confidential assistant to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee when he was minister of information and cultural affairs. A reader at Vidyasagar College, his real name is Prasanta Banerjee. The news, saved by a website, is pasted below also.

From Prakash Karat to Benoy Konar, Brinda Karat to Rabin Deb, everyone tried to convince the common people that those who won student elections at the JU are anti-communists and roughs. Now they are all silent, as true followwrs of Goebbles. The probe report also stated that the fire brigade was not informed timely by those that raised the false allegation, obviously to sensationalise the matter.

At the end is also a news in the Indian Express.
SR

Probe trashes clash claim 15 Jan 07 by Our Special Correspondent  (http://telegraphindia.com/1080115/jsp/calcutta/story_8770659.jsp)
JU report clears anti-SFI unions of violence and arson charges
The one-man commission, set up by the chief minister to probe the Jadavpur University violence in April last year, has rubbished the allegations of the CPM-backed Karmachari Samsad against three anti-SFI student associations.
The panel, headed by Ashoke Mohan Chakraborty, the additional chief secretary in charge of higher education, has observed that there is no evidence to prove that any member of the three associations — Faculty of Engineering and Technology Students' Union (Fetsu), We the Independents (WTI) and Forum of Arts Students (FAS) — was involved in the violence and arson on the night of April 5.
The Samsad, a body of non-teaching employees of the university, had alleged that the three anti-SFI groups had ransacked its office, set it on fire and looted items worth Rs 60,000. According to some Samsad members, the groups had also ransacked the Science Club of the university.
The arson followed the students' union elections of the science faculty, which was won by the WTI.
The Chakraborty commission report, a copy of which is with Metro, was placed before the university's executive council last Wednesday.
"As many as 187 witnesses appeared before the commission, but none could name an individual who had taken part in the destruction of the properties," the report said. "The inquiry commission is not in a position to name the persons who destroyed the Samsad office and the Science Club."
More than 70 teachers and around 300 non-teaching employees stay on the campus, which also houses six hostels, accommodating over 700 students. "Nobody had witnessed the Samsad office being set on fire," the report said.
The panel also found no truth in the Samsad's allegation that anti-SFI students had tried to prevent fire tenders from reaching the spot. An officer of Gariahat fire station told the panel that "nobody had stopped the fire tenders at the university gate that day".
The commission has expressed concern over the way Samsad leaders had asked the securitymen on the campus not to intervene. "It was, indeed, strange that the securitymen had been advised by the senior leaders of the Karmachari Samsad not to confront the trouble-makers…"
The panel has urged the authorities to evolve a code of conduct to improve the relationship between the Samsad and the student bodies.
>>
Naxalites On The Rampage At Jadavpur University (http://naxalwatch.blogspot.com/2007/04/naxalites-on-rampage-at-jadavpur.html)
Photos of Marx, Engels, Lenin & Anil Biswas strewn around in the room after the attack.



B Prasant

SHOUTING slogans in the dark of the midnight, flaming torches held aloft with glee that 'Jadavpur University shall go the way of Nandigram,' a bunch of armed and patently drunk (and not just with heady mischief) Naxalites, some students of various faculties, other hardly so, set fire to the Science Club and then went ahead to ransack the Karmachari Bhavan, all on April 6-7.

They pulled down photos of Marx, Engels, and Lenin and stomped upon them. They vandalised electronic goods, furniture and slogans were raised that Jadavpur University would soon be a 'free zone where the writ of the state government would be allowed to run.'

Earlier throughout the day, the vandals, who call themselves students, had attacked supporters of SFI, threatened democratic-minded teachers with dire consequences, and by evening the repeated assaults on the SFI workers saw ten of them having to be removed to hospitals with head and body injuries. 'Burn the SFI workers alive,' shouted the hoods. The occasion was the Naxalite-SUCI combination winning an election in the university's arts faculty.

When these hooligans later went out of the campus and tried to attack houses of known SFI workers, they met with united resistance of the people of the locality who bare-handed drove the goons back to the safety of the campus. Once inside, the hooligans indulged in more vandalism. Moreover, they would not allow fire tenders to enter the university to douse what had become by then raging flames threatening to spread.

The hooligans, once having done the misdeed, at once climbed onto jeeps and cars and made off for Nandigram, it was noticed. Later, on reaching Nandigram they were whisked into 'safe houses' run by the Trinamul Congress, setting up yet another example of the right-left cooperation, unprincipled and opportunistic, against the Left Front and the Left Front government.

The SFI has organised a successful one-day students' strike across Bengal on April 9, and have undertaken continuous demonstrations and marches in the Jadavpur University condemning the semi-fascist attack and calling upon the authorities to apprehend the culprits, a large number of whom have already been clearly identified.

Educationists across Bengal including vice-chancellors, principals, teachers' organisations, and eminent teachers have condemned the incident and they are at one in believing that the heinous attempt was made to disrupt the education scene in Bengal as part of a calculated effort.
>>
Brawl in JU after SFI loses engineering faculty too 6 Apr 07 (http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=230356)
WTI students say the SFI brought in CPI(M) hooligans to bash them up, members of teaching and non-teaching staff too lent a hand
Express News Service
Kolkata, April 5: The Nandigram issue has apparently decimated the Student's Federation of India — the students' wing of the CPI(M) — in the Jadavpur University this year.
Following its loss in the Arts Faculty and Science Faculty elections, the SFI suffered its most humiliating debacle at the engineering faculty elections that was held today. While at the Science Faculty, We The Independent (WTI) bagged all the 4 seats, at the Engineering Faculty, the Democratic Students Forum bagged all the 5 seats.
All three elections were held in the last 10 days. And today's results finally triggered trouble, with the SFI members allegedly unleashing terror on the campus.
Just when 200-odd representatives of We The Independent (WTI) — the students' organisation which won the Science Faculty student's union elections — set out to celebrate their 500-margin victory over the SFI, pandemonium broke: they were allegedly roughed up by their SFI counterparts. The WTI said the SFI had gathered CPI(M) hooligans and hoodlums from outside to beat them up.
Allegations and counter allegations flew thick and fast.
Students from the science faculty heaped accusations on SFI members. "They are absolutely frustrated because we have won all four seats in the 950-student faculty. We won by a margin of 500. Seven of our boys had to be taken to EDF Hospital for treatment of the injuries," said a WTI member.
The most embarrassing claim made by the students was that some teachers also joined the SFI in bashing up the WTI boys. "Even teachers beat up the students in the Science Club room. We were also beaten up in the non-teaching staff office room. We are submitting a deputation to the Vice-Chancellor demanding the suspension of these teachers," said Shesadri Mitra, one of the WTI students who also filed an FIR at the Jadavpur police station. The faculty tried to cool down the tense atmosphere.
Prof Swadesh Ranjan Roychowdhury, HoD, Chemistry, said: "We have instructed the students to write down their complaints and demands and submit it to the vice-chairman. There is no use increasing tension by flaring tempers."
"It is obvious that a certain political party is trying to get back their stronghold after losing in every faculty and hence creating the ruckus... this is a desperate attempt to get back to power," said another professor on condition of anonymity.
Sougata Roy, the general secretary of the JU Non-teaching staff union, which owes allegiance to CPI(M), however, said: "The WTI members were shouting anti-SFI slogans and suddenly got inside the Science Club and started beating up the SFI students. They also got inside our office and vandalised it. Now they are misrepresenting facts to cover up their follies." None of the SFI members were available for comment.


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Sign the Petition : Release the Arrested University Teachers Immediately : An Appeal to the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh

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Mukto-Mona Celebrates 5th Anniversary
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MM Project : Grand assembly of local freedom fighters at Raumari
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