Some former students of Jadavpur University handed Rs 3,000 to the elderly man on crutches whose stationery shop on the campus was vandalised by suspected AVBP supporters on September 19.
Tarit Baran Das, 52, was overjoyed by the gesture. It more or less compensates for the theft of pens and other items from his shop near Gate No. 4 on the campus.
But more than that he saw it as a reaffirmation of JU’s support for their beloved Taritda.
“This is the best gift I could have ahead of Puja. The gesture of these former students touched me. They made me feel that they would stand by me as much as possible in the face of any adversity,” said Das, a JU alumnus himself.
A group of students, armed with bamboos and shouting Jai Shri Ram, had shattered the glass windows of the shop around 7pm on September 19, the day Union minister Babul Supriyo had run into a students’ protest on the campus.
Das, who had lost a part of his left leg to tumour in his childhood, watched in horror as pens, pen-drives, books and other stationery items were looted after the vandals broke the windowpanes.
Former students of the university have constituted a body called “JU EX” in the aftermath of the attack and collected Rs 3,000 for Das.
Members of the organisation assembled in front of the shop, Tarit Communication, to hand over the money to Das.
“We wanted to convey the message that the former students of the university are ready to stand by Taritda, who was targeted by ABVP goons and suffered losses in the attack. I think we need to resist in unison these elements who do not even spare a physically handicapped person,” said Sourish Ghosh, a former student.
The supporters of ABVP, the students’ wing of RSS, had barged into the campus to protest the detention of Supriyo. The mob also targeted the SFI-run arts faculty students’ union room.
A resident of Subhasgram, South 24-Parganas, Das had graduated from JU in 1992 with a master’s in philosophy. Two years later, he set up the shop after the JU authorities agreed to help him for being physically challenged.
