Police entered the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute campus in Kolkata late Tuesday night after students held a torch march demanding enhanced security, intensifying a dispute between the institute administration and the students’ union over police deployment and campus safety.
SRFTI authorities said nearly 50 students took out the march without prior intimation or permission and moved through different parts of the campus, including residential areas near the guest house. An institute official said the students carried torches and shouted intimidating slogans, creating an atmosphere of fear and anxiety for nearly an hour.
“This can’t be called a peaceful protest. They can’t just take the law into their hands and hijack the institution,” the official said.
Some police personnel remained on the campus on Wednesday morning, according to an institute employee. The entry has become a further point of contention because the students’ union gave a different account of both the march and the timing of the deployment.
The union alleged that 10 to 15 police personnel entered the campus around 11.30pm and went near the guest house where the vice-chancellor resides. It said the students’ peaceful march within the campus and around the main gate had ended around 6.30pm, several hours before the police arrived. The union also claimed that most of the personnel deployed were not wearing identification badges, raising concerns about transparency and accountability.
Four student representatives later approached the vice-chancellor seeking a discussion and written clarification on the police deployment, but he refused to engage with them, the union alleged. Responding to the vice-chancellor’s claim that he felt intimidated by the torch march, the union said it had kept the area around the guest house clear of students and offered to provide videos and photographs supporting its version of events.
The latest dispute follows confrontations involving an RSS-linked organisation on September 27 and October 4. Classes at SRFTI have remained suspended since September 28 after a clash with the organisation on September 27. On October 4, members of the RSS-linked Bangiyo Hindu Jagaran Manch marched towards the institute’s main gate, during which bottles and bricks were allegedly hurled.
The continuing disruption has affected both academic activity and the administration of the campus. Students have been staging an indefinite sit-in outside the vice-chancellor’s office since October 12. They also refused to vacate their hostels after the institute administration asked them to do so on October 16.
The competing accounts over the torch march and the subsequent police entry have left the immediate questions of authorisation, police identification and communication between the administration and students unresolved. The students’ union has sought a written explanation from the vice-chancellor, while police personnel continued to be present on campus on Wednesday morning.
