The recent SRFTI clash is just another one in a growing pile of issues the country is currently seeing. While one part is demanding the resignation of the CEC, another is grappling with a disturbing women’s safety crisis, and yet another has seen protests over hostel safety turn violent.
Now, students at a film school have been attacked after protesting against a right-wing consumer welfare group holding an event on their campus.
On the same day that students at LPU were protesting against the university’s callous attitude towards student safety, the students of Kolkata’s Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) were protesting against an event held by Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat (ABGP). Things took a violent turn when the group’s supporters attacked, chased, cornered, and beat them, some of it right outside the campus gates.
What Happened At SRFTI?
On the morning of Sunday, September 27, the Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat (ABGP), a consumer-rights organisation affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), was holding a meeting in the institute’s auditorium.
Upon learning about the event, students began protesting outside the auditorium, raising slogans, with some even trying to remove the event’s posters and banners.
The students objected to a political organisation with ideological links being allowed to hold an event inside a film institute at all, especially one that had nothing to do with filmmaking or cinema.
Blossom Hazarika, president of the SRFTI Students’ Union, also said that the union had not been informed that the institute’s main auditorium had been rented out to the ABGP.
He said, “We fail to understand why the SRFTI authorities leased out the space — that, too, on a Sunday — for a non-film event. We put up posters questioning the administration’s decision. The situation escalated when ABGP members confronted us.”
The two groups then clashed, with the students claiming they were attacked by the ABGP supporters, alleging they were “surrounded by goons” and called “anti-nationals” and “urban Naxals”, while the right-wing group claimed that the students had surrounded a bus that had women and children attending the event.
An ABGP spokesperson speaking to the media said, “We had paid ₹15,000 to hire the auditorium and had obtained permission from the authorities. Our organisation works mainly for consumer protection and awareness. But an attempt was made to disrupt our programme, and posters were torn.”
Navoleena, a student at the SRFTI, also reportedly said, “Today an RSS-backed organisation called Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat was holding an event in the main theatre of SRFTI without the knowledge of the students and the union. So, when the students got to know of this event, the union went on to put up posters and began to question the campus authority. However, things escalated pretty quickly when people from ABGP started attacking the students.”
Videos and photos of the clash uploaded to various social media platforms showed students panicking and trying to protect themselves as supporters of the organisation began gathering outside the campus gates.
Navoleena added, “A lot of students did not know about the incident. Some were engaged in their shooting work. These people (ABGP) even disrupted those. They were beating the students and attacking them relentlessly. However, as the students began to gather in the campus, the ABGP was finally forced to end their programme and leave the campus premises.”
Another SRFTI student said, “The police came later. But even after being deployed to ensure things were under control, they (police) began to listen to the ABGP members. In the meantime, a lot of right-wing groups gathered outside the campus and tried to break in through the gate. They were throwing bottles, stones and even gave rape threats to the students.”
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ABGP’s Central Committee member and Head of Communications, Vijay Sagar, also said, “Students of the campus began to call us right-wing, and tore off our posters. They began to say, ‘how did the right-wing people come inside our campus?’
But we had booked the hall after paying the hall fees and receiving official booking confirmation from the institute. They began to say that this is a political event. It is not a political event. We work for the interests of the consumers, and speak against every political party. We are ideologically right-wing, because we believe in ‘Bharat,’ and there is no point in hiding that.”
The Students’ Union, however, said in its official statement, “When the students began to question the institute’s decision, and began to put up posters at the main theatre, the members of the ABGP confronted students and attempted to remove them from the theatre. The situation then escalated into physical violence against the students.
“Students were verbally abused, including being called ‘anti-nationals’ and ‘cockroaches’. Members of the group then physically attacked the students, including women students, punching and kicking them and pelting stones, even at those who were not part of the protest and were simply doing their academic work.”
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Manas Ruidas, a student of direction, recalls, “We were called anti-national, dimagi Naxal, jihadi, Pakistani and Bangladeshi. They made obscene gestures at female students and threatened them with rape. They punched and kicked us, including women students, and also assaulted us with sticks.”
Duttatreya Dey, an editing student and doctor, also added, “One of the students has a cut injury on his back. Stone pelting has resulted in facial injury. One has a serious laceration on the forehead and nose-bleeding. Another student suffered a blackout after being hit by a stone.”
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As per reports, one student later questioned the institute, saying, “We want to ask the SRFTI administration why an RSS organ that has no connection with films was allowed to hold a programme on the campus… They beat us up just because we protested their presence on the campus.
The SRFTI authorities must answer: how could members of an outfit with alleged links to the RSS beat up and chase students on their own campus?”
Beyond the students, faculty members who stepped in to protect them were also caught up in the violence and sustained injuries of their own.
Several students have also described the psychological toll of the day: being surrounded, threatened with rape, and branded “anti-nationals” and “terrorists” by a mob. The experience, students say, has left them shaken well beyond any physical bruises and unwilling to return to normal academic life until the institute can guarantee it won’t happen again.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: The Print, The Hindu, The Indian Express
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
This post is tagged under: SRFTI, SRFTI clash, SRFTI news, SRFTI students, SRFTI right wing, SRFTI kolkata, rss, SRFTI rss, SRFTI campus clash, SRFTI student attack
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