Tinbatti More, a prominent crossing in the southern part of Siliguri on Asian Highway II, turned into a battlefield on Thursday afternoon when supporters of the DYFI, the CPM’s youth front, reportedly clashed with police on being prevented from marching towards state branch secretariat Uttarkanya.

Two policemen and around 10 protesters got injured in the incident. Police detained 23 protesters, including DYFI state president Minakshi Mukherjee. They were later released on personal bonds.

Over 1,000 DYFI supporters assembled at Mahatma Gandhi Chowk in the city this afternoon and started heading for Uttarkanya, which is around 6km away, to march in protest of the recent corruption cases which surfaced in various state government departments.

The supporters started walking along Burdwan Road and reached Panchanan Barma Chowk, a crossing where the road meets with AH-II. Soon, they found a barricade put up by the police and broke it.

Around 3pm, as they marched further ahead towards Tinbatti More, a large contingent of police personnel led by senior officers stopped them. Uttarkanya is a couple of kilometres away from this crossing.

The protesters got into an altercation with the police and insisted they be allowed to proceed as they wanted to submit a memorandum at the branch secretariat.

The police, however, refused to allow them, leading to protesters jostling with the law enforcers.

The police lathi-charged the protesters to disperse them. The protesters ran but some of them started pelting bricks and stones at the police.

Shopkeepers quickly downed shutters. Pedestrians ran to save themselves from being hit by stones and bricks.

As stone-pelting went on, a contingent of RAF (rapid action force) chased the protesters with batons. Police fired tear gas at protesters. Minakshi, who squatted on the road in protest, was picked up by women police personnel and taken to a police vehicle. She and 22 others who were detained were taken to the nearby New Jalpaiguri police station.

Meanwhile, police managed to disperse the protesters on the stretch.

However, traffic came to a halt along that stretch of AH-II. It was almost after one-and-a-half hours, around 4.15pm, that the road got clear.

Minakshi told newspersons later that the police acted without provocation.

“We had informed the administration about our programme. Even so, our rally was forcibly stopped and police resorted to an unprovoked attack,” she said.

A senior officer of the Siliguri Metropolitan Police said those walking in the march tried to break the barricade and were thus stopped. “They pelted stones at the police, which left two of our men injured. We detained 23 persons from the spot and they were later released on personal bonds,” the officer said.

As news of the clash spread, senior CPM leaders rushed to the NJP police station.

Asok Bhattacharya, a veteran party leader, slammed the police action.

“The DYFI supporters wanted to raise questions at the branch secretariat on certain issues, including the non-functioning north Bengal development department, corruption and recruitment anomalies. However, the protesters were attacked and detained for no reason,” said Bhattacharya.