Police broke up multiple protests across Salt Lake against forcible removal of the protesting Teachers’ Eligibility Test (TET) examinees from near the Karunamoyee crossing early on Friday.
A cat-and-mouse game between the Bidhannagar police and the protesters, led by Left Front activists, continued from Friday morning till late afternoon.
SFI and DYFI activists organised multiple protests on Salt Lake roads, including one in front of City Centre.
First, they tried to organise a protest at the Karunamoyee crossing. The police arrested a few protesters and removed the others.
The agitation then shifted near City Centre, where cops again dispersed them.
The protesters then split into two groups.
One group tried to block the road near Indira Bhawan and the other the entrance to the City Centre Metro station.
A large group of ABVP activists reached Salt Lake and tried to hold a demonstration on the road in front of City Centre.
They were stopped near City Centre Metro station and put into prison vans before being whisked away.
A number of ABVP supporters said the cops had kicked them and rained blows on them.
Cops moved around with loudhailers asking everyone to disperse and clear the road. Traffic was disrupted at several places in the township, prompting the police to put in place diversions.
“What we did was in accordance with the court order. No one were hurt on purpose and all the agitators were released after preventive arrest. No force was used,” said a senior Bidhannagar police officer.
Another officer said 143 preventive arrests were made. All those who had been arrested were let off by 7pm on Friday. Early on Friday, the police first bodily lifted the agitators from the TET 2014 batch from the Karunamoyee protest site around 12.30am.
Around 2.30am, the police removed the protesters from the TET 2017 batch.
The TET protesters were put into prison vans and said to have been released at Sealdah station, Howrah staion and the Esplanade bus terminus.
Three protesters — Achintya Dhara, Arnab Ghosh and Achintya Samanta — were reported missing.
On Friday morning, all three came out of Bidhannagar East police station and were seen leaving in an app cab. Before leaving Dhara said the cops didn’t arrest or torture them.
