Frontal organisations of the Left on Thursday defied a notification of the commissioner of police, Kolkata, and held a well-attended rally at Esplanade to demand justice for the RG Kar victim and release protesters jailed in “framed cases”.

The rally was held on a day the CPM’s frontal outfits and a doctors’ body filed separate petitions in Calcutta High Court challenging the notification issued by police commissioner Manoj Verma on Wednesday that they claimed prevents political parties and other organisations from holding meetings and rallies in various areas under the jurisdiction of Kolkata police, including Esplanade, from September 25 to November 23.

Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj is likely to hear the petition on Friday.

Addressing the rally, DYFI state secretary Minakshi Mukherjee said: “The Kolkata police commissioner has clamped (section) 144...He is acting bigger than his boots. The new CP has imposed (Bharatiya) Nyay Sanhita provisions to clamp 144 across Calcutta. Why?

“... Have any killings or riots happened in Calcutta during the (RG Kar) protest that the CP had to impose 144 in the city? Is the police chief afraid that the protests will shake the chair of the police minister and she (Mamata Banerjee) will crumble...I will like to tell the police even if you beat us, jail us, impose draconian laws, you will not be able to crush the protests.”

Referring to the recent arrest and subsequent bail of DYFI leader Kalatan Dasgupta in connection with an alleged conspiracy to attack the site of doctors’ protest outside Swasthya Bhavan,Mukherjee said police atrocities would only make the people’s movement “stronger andrallies longer”.

Though she did not name Trinamool Congress or its leaders, the DYFI leader urged the gathering to put up “posters demanding justice for the raped and murdered RG Kar doctor” that should tower over those of “some leaders”.

An SFI leader said that the length of the rallies that marched from Howrah and Sealdah stations to the rally venue at Esplanade reflected the defiant spirit of the people against the police.

CPM Rajya Sabha MP and lawyer Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya expressed shock at the CP’s order. “Under what logic and which provision of law did he (CP)impose Section 144 across the city. They think with such measures they will be able to stifle the voices of dissent but that will not happen.”