A day after two students of the Communist Party of India-backed Students Federation of India were attacked at the Visva Bharati University in Birbhum district of West Bengal for supporting anti-CAA protest inside the varsity campus, two persons with alleged links to the RSS-linked Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) have been arrested for the crime. According to a report in The Indian Express, the ABVP has denied charges and said that those involved in the attack on the SFI activists are not linked to it.
The two injured students have been identified as Swapnaneel Mukhopadhyay and Phalguni Pan, both from the Economics department. Both have been admitted to Pearson Memorial Hospital, the IE report said.
The victims have alleged that ABVP workers beat them up using sticks when they were returning to the hostel. They even alleged that the ABVP workers tried to attack them inside the hostel premises. The attackers have been identified as Achintya Bagdi and Sabbir Ali.
“I was returning home from university when they beat us up with sticks. They were Achintya Bagdi and Sabbir Ali. This was done as we had staged a protest against BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta on January 8,” Swapnaneel told reporters from the hospital bed.
According to Phalguni Pan, another victim, the attackers were previously with the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP), the students’ wing of ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. Pan claimed they recently joined the ABVP.
“Their main objection was why they took part and supported the nation-wide bandh against the implementation of CAA, NRC, and NPR,” the injured student said.
Pan added that the attacker also opposed their decision to stage a protest against CAA at the varsity campus.
According to the IE reports, the two injured students allegedly took part in protests against BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta on January 8, the day SFI workers confined the BJP leader, Visva-Bharati Vice-Chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty and several others in a room for over seven hours to protest against the university’s decision to invite the BJP politician to deliver a lecture on the Citizenship Act which was amended by the Parliament in December last year.
Bagdi, however said that he is not an ABVP worker and claimed that he had inputs that there was trouble inside the varsity campus. Bagdi said he went to the varsity to stand with the students.
“Later we got to know that SFI members entered into a fight with their own members which left some of them injured. It is a conspiracy which has been hatched against us by the SFI and the ABVP,” Bagdi said.
The ABVP also issued a statement in which it denied involvement in the incident. Saptarshi Sarkar, state secretary of ABVP, said that no ABVP member was involved in the incident and alleged that Left members are trying to disrupt the academic environment.
