Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Kumar Verma and other senior police officers address the media at the Kolkata Police Headquarters at Lal Bazar on Friday.
| Photo Credit: SHRABANA CHATTERJEE
Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Kumar Verma and other senior police officials on Friday (April 11, 2025) justified the police’s action against protesting teachers, days after visuals emerged of police personnel baton-charging and attacking protestors during an agitation in south Kolkata’s Kasba.
In the visuals that emerged from a protest by aggrieved teachers at the Kasba office of the District Inspector of Schools on April 9, uniformed police personnel were seen beating protestors with batons, kicking, and pushing them.
Protestors were agitating against the cancellation by the Supreme Court of nearly 26,000 teaching and non-teaching job appointments in West Bengal over irregularities in recruitment. After the protest, they alleged severe injuries were inflicted by the police and cited multiple incidents where the police’s batons “broke” under the force of the lathi charge.
Two protestors were reportedly hospitalised after the clash.
On the contrary, multiple senior officials of Kolkata Police, including the Police Commissioner, stuck by their earlier claim that the use of ‘mild force’ was ‘necessary’ to disperse the allegedly unruly mob of protesting teachers and prevent them from damaging property.
The police also lodged an FIR against the protesting teachers under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) at the Kasba police station.
“Thirteen police personnel have been injured after protestors attacked them. One of them was hospitalised for three days. Another police personnel who was accused of attacking protestors sustained injuries in his groin area and chest. His ears were slapped, and his glasses were broken,” Mr. Verma said on Friday.
He alleged that nothing has been said about the protestors who allegedly attacked police personnel, despite the police force being “demonised” for their actions during the clash that day.
“It is not acceptable to expect that police personnel will not act when injured. However, the actions of one particular police personnel that day are not desirable, and we have taken steps to ensure that does not happen again,” the Police Commissioner added.
Showcasing certain videos and photographs, Joint Commissioner (Crime) of Kolkata Police Rupesh Kumar claimed there is evidence to prove that protestors, without provocation, breached barricades and gates, attacked police personnel, and broke locks with concrete blocks on April 9.
“Some protestors who had turned violent have been identified as outsiders, not teachers. Also, protestors inside the office premises were heard telling each other to break more locks and to set fire to the place with petrol. Even at this point, the police did not use force. They acted in self-defence and used minimum force when protestors directly assaulted the police,” Mr. Kumar said.
However, Mehboob Mondal, a representative of the agitating teachers, contested the police’s claims, saying there were no outsiders at the agitation at Kasba and the audio excerpts from the protest are being “misused” by the police.
“The teacher who was seeing saying ‘set fire with petrol’ was under a lot of duress. He has a small child at home and he recently lost his job. For many days now, he has been saying he should be doused with petrol and set on fire because he has no hope left. He did not mean that public property or police personnel should be doused with petrol,” Mr. Mondal said.
It is also worth noting that sub-inspector Ritan Das, the police personnel who was seen kicking and pushing protestors during the clash, was initially appointed the Investigating Officer of the case lodged against protesting teachers. But after protests from certain quarters, he was replaced by sub-inspector Sanjay Singh.
Published – April 11, 2025 10:54 pm IST
