Kolkata campus clash: Why the arrests are welcome

The Kolkata police on Wednesday finally arrested 12 people for the murder of sub-inspector Tapas Chowdhury during a clash between Trinamool Congress and Congress student unions at the Harimohan Ghosh College in the Garden Reach area of Kolkata. The top brass of the police department reportedly decided to go ahead with the arrests despite and alleged order from a politician to ‘go slow on arrests’ over Chowdhury’s murder. A report by The Telegraph quoted an officer recounting a senior colleague as telling police commissioner RK Pachnanda “Sir, we have to act now or the morale of the police will collapse. A sub-inspector has been killed on duty and there can be no further excuse for us.” Chowdhury’s daughter also voiced her resentment at the political establishment holding cops back from using their weapons when needed.  “If his (Chowdhury’s) superiors had allowed him to charge at the men who were running towards him with weapons, he would have beaten them back,” Tanushree had said on Wednesday. [caption id=“attachment_625043” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A political figure had allegedly asked the police to go slow on the arrests of the SI’s murder. Ibnlive[/caption] Trinamool minister Firad Hakim had claimed goons, who were not part of the college, were involved in the ruckus and they were the ones who had resorted to bombing and violence. The minister even claimed one Mukhtar, a Congress party worker, was the culprit. However, television channels had already aired footage of the youth in a red shirt rushing into a melee and firing at the police official, before escaping from the spot. Which was why, instead of following the minister’s orders, the Kolkata police top brass gave the go-ahead to arrest the person in the footage aired on television.

The Telegraph reports that the senior political leader, according to sources,  who had initially asked the police to go slow tried till the end to deter the force.

“There was so much anger in the force because everyone could see on television how one of their colleagues was gunned down. It was not the time to take orders from political bosses and that was conveyed to Writers’,” The Telegraph quoted a  senior IPS officer as saying.

With inputs from IANS