Professors, teaching staff take out rally in Kolkata

A day after Calcutta University (CU) professors were heckled by alleged Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad activists, the teaching fraternity took to the streets here today in protest against it.
The protesters also questioned the alleged silence of Vice-chancellor Suranjan Das over the assault on professors in front of him yesterday.
The professors, who were joined by the non teaching staff, took out a rally from Rajabazar Science College, a premier institute in the city, to the famed College Square about 2 km away, wearing black masks and carrying placards denouncing the alleged assault.
"We are out on the streets to protest against yesterday's barbaric assault on teachers by TMCP goons inside the campus of Calcutta university," said Shyamal Chakraborty, a member of 'Save University - Save Democracy'.

This forum of teachers and non-teaching staff have been agitating for the past few days against the abolishment of the post of financial officer(FO) and demanded reinstatement of Harisadhan Ghosh, who was removed as FO a few days ago.
"We want to know why is the VC silent over the attack, which took place in front of him yesterday. Is he afraid of someone ?" said Nandini Mukherjee, a professor of Jadavpur University.

Several intellectuals of the city too condemned the incident.
Meanwhile, CPI(M) student wing SFI claimed that today's students' strike called by it across all campuses of CU as a mark of protest, was successful.

"The student's strike across the CU campuses has been successful. We condemn this attack on professors by the goons of TMCP," said SFI state president Madhuja Sen Roy.
TMCP, however, has refuted the assault charge.