By IANS,
Kolkata : Five women students of Jadavpur University claimed they were harassed by the police in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district for allegedly having Maoist links.
The incident took place at a house near the university where the five students – Debolina Chakrabarty, Jayeeta Das, Roopa Basu, Somdatta Mukherjee and Anwesha Sarkar – were running the Matangini Mahila Samity, a women’s outfit working against land acquisition in Nandigram, Singur and other places in West Bengal.
“A team of police personnel from East Jadavpur police station arrived Saturday at our place and wanted to search our room saying that we have Maoist connections. But they could not show us any search warrant. One of our friends informed our university teachers and other friends, who saved us from being put behind bars,” said Jayeeta.
“It was a well-planned conspiracy by the local Communist Party of India (Marxist) activists,” she added.
However, Pappu Chowdhury, a CPI-M leader in Jadavpur, said his party has nothing to do with the raid.
“Our students shouldn’t have been harassed like this. Technical formalities should have been maintained before enforcing the law,” said varsity registrar Rajat Bandopadhyay.
District Police Superintendent Praveen Kumar said: “We were told the girls had hung Maoist posters and pamphlets out to dry. Hence we wanted to carry out a search.”