Violent clashes erupted at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), resulting in injuries to students and faculty and leading to the registration of three police cases against unidentified students. The incidents stemmed from a protest by SRFTI students against the rental of an institute auditorium for an event by an RSS affiliate, Akhil Bharatiya Grameen Pathshala (ABGP). The police cases involve serious charges including wrongful restraint of public servants, assault, criminal intimidation, and damage to public property, with both sides levying allegations of physical and verbal abuse.

Violent clashes erupted at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), resulting in injuries to students and faculty and leading to the registration of three police cases against unidentified students. The incidents stemmed from a protest by SRFTI students against the rental of an institute auditorium for an event by an RSS affiliate, Akhil Bharatiya Grameen Pathshala (ABGP). The police cases involve serious charges including wrongful restraint of public servants, assault, criminal intimidation, and damage to public property, with both sides levying allegations of physical and verbal abuse.

Violent clashes erupted at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), resulting in injuries to students and faculty and leading to the registration of three police cases against unidentified students. The incidents stemmed from a protest by SRFTI students against the rental of an institute auditorium for an event by an RSS affiliate, Akhil Bharatiya Grameen Pathshala (ABGP). The police cases involve serious charges including wrongful restraint of public servants, assault, criminal intimidation, and damage to public property, with both sides levying allegations of physical and verbal abuse.

Three police cases have been registered against unidentified students, a day after 30 students and two faculty members of the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) were injured in clashes.

The first case was filed by Koushick Bose, additional officer-in-charge of Panchasayar police station, who was on official duty at the campus on Sunday. According to the complaint, a group of students "wrongfully restrained the complainant and other police personnel, used criminal force and manhandled them with intent to deter them from discharging their duties as public servants." Bose also alleged that the students prevented officers from leaving the campus and broke the window pane of a government vehicle.

The students have been charged with BNS 126(2), punishment for wrongful restraint; BNS 132, assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging their duty; BNS 121, voluntarily causing hurt to deter a public servant from duty; BNS 3(5), acts done by several persons in furtherance of a common intention and PDPP Act, 1984, Section 3 or mischief causing damage to public property.

The second case against SFRTI students is also by an advocate named Anjan Sinha, regional secretary of Akhil Bhartiya Grahak Panchayat Paschim Banga Prant, Krishnanagar in Nadia district. 

The complaint states that the accused SRFTI students gheraoed them inside the hall campus, wrongfully restrained them from proceeding, abused them with filthy languages, made gesture to insult the modesty of female members present with them. The complaint further says that the accused students voluntarily caused hurt by means of dangerous means, criminally intimidated them with dire consequences. 

There are allegations that SRFTI students of the union also uttered words with deliberate and malicious intention to outrage religious feelings by vandalising the banner, photo of Bharat Mata, Maa Durga, Vivekananda and made derogatory remarks against the ABGP organisation. 

The charges in this case are BNS 115(2), voluntarily causing hurt; BNS 118(2); voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons; BNS 79, word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman; BNS 351(2), criminal intimidation; and BNS 3(5), acts done by several persons in furtherance of a common intention.

The third case is filed by Sukanta Majumder, Dean(Film) alleging that some unknown persons wrongfully restrained the students and two faculties of their Institute, voluntarily caused hurt by dangerous means, insulted the modesty of the women students and also threatened them with dire consequences. The charges slapped against the accused ABGP students are similar to the second case.

Clashes broke out on Sunday after Akhil Bharatiya Grameen Pathshala (ABGP), an RSS affiliate, booked an auditorium on campus for an event. SRFTI students protested the institute’s decision to rent out the space on a Sunday for a non-film event, putting up posters to question the move. ABGP members then confronted the protesting students, leading to a violent altercation. 

SRFTI students alleged that they were called anti-national, dimagi naxals, jihadis, Pakistani and Bangladeshi. The students also alleged that they were kicked, and punched while bricks and stones were hurled at them. Female students of the institute said that they were threatened with rape while obscene gestures were made at them.

The SRFTI Students' Union issued a statement following the clashes, rejecting the allegations as false. The union claimed that students sought refuge inside the library, but ABGP workers pursued them and assaulted the librarian. They added that the library was surrounded, leaving students and staff trapped in fear on their own campus. Students further alleged they were chased, their clothes were torn, and their mobile phones were forcibly snatched. "Violence was directed at students across the campus, not merely at those who had put up the posters," the statement read.

The students say they, including teachers, drove ABGP students out of the main theatre while police reached the spot to take stock of the situation. However, SRFTI students allege that ABGP workers were still gathered outside the institute gate, attempting to enter the campus and throwing stones and bottles towards students inside.

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