Four Visva Bharati students were reportedly put under house arrest by district police starting Sunday morning to stem what police sources termed “potential security breaches” by student leaders aimed at Union home minister Amit Shah’s road show, though the Birbhum police chief denied having issued such orders.
Undergraduate economics students Falguni Pan and Somenath Sow, the latter of whom is also an SFI leader, and research scholars and All India Democratic Students’ Organisation (AIDSO) leaders Amit Mondal and Beauty Saha were all identified and rounded up by police personnel between Saturday night and Sunday morning, and reportedly confined to their homes and student accommodations, with the police even providing them breakfast and lunch in order to keep them indoors.
The move came on the day Shah held a massive rally in the varsity town, traditionally known as a bastion of Bengali culture related to Rabindranath Tagore, a day after same student unions held vociferous protests in and around the town condemning Shah’s imminent visit and burnt his effigies.
“We received inputs that these student leaders might gather people to create unsavoury incidents around Shah’s motorcade, so we acted in advance,” said a police officer.
Sources said Mondal and Saha were apprehended early on Sunday on their way back from Khowai where they had organised a smaller rally to condemn Shah’s visit. Both were reportedly escorted home and monitored, whereas Pan and Sow were identified at their respective paid accommodations and ordered indoors till “Shah left Birbhum”.
Birbhum district SP Shyam Singh denied orders for house arrest but said that routine police surveillance might have been mistaken for it. “We did not confine anyone to house arrest,” he said.
Student leader Pan refuted police claims and said students’ “right to non-violent protest” had been stifled by “an abuse of power”.
Sources said students were also irate at the fact that BJP leaders such as Dilip Ghosh, Mukul Roy and Kailash Vijayvargiya were allowed on campus grounds with Shah.
“We had been told no one other than the home minister would be allowed on campus,” said Mondal.
