JU alumnus produced in court after remand ends; teachers, students demand his immediate release

Kolkata, Aug 18 (PTI) Jadavpur University alumnus Hindol Majumdar was produced before the Alipore Court on Monday following the expiry of his remand tenure.

Majumdar, currently a researcher at a Spanish university who is accused of plotting an attack on West Bengal Education minister Bratya Basu's convoy at the JU campus in March this year, was held at Delhi airport last Wednesday after he landed from Europe in the wake of a lookout circular notice issued against him.

On Friday, the court had remanded Majumdar to a three-day police custody after the government pleader submitted that even though the accused was away in Spain at the time of the incident, he was the prime conspirator in the attack on the minister's car.

The counsel compared Majumdar's alleged involvement to the attack on the American Center in Kolkata in January 2022, where the mastermind Aftab Ansari planned the sabotage operation while sitting in Dubai.

"We have seen the prosecution's documents they will submit in court today. They are likely to seek my client's judicial custody. That means they find no need to interrogate him further. We will move his bail prayer since he has clearly been framed," Majumdar's counsel said at the court premises.

The counsel claimed Hindol's name did not feature in the FIR connected to the JU campus violence incident, but added that the court allowed custody of the accused in connection to a separate case.

Kolkata Police had earlier said they have accessed conversations between Majumdar and students who had surrounded and attacked the minister's car.

Meanwhile, former and current students of Jadavpur University alongside teachers, researchers and non-teaching staff, took out a protest rally from the institution's main campus on Monday afternoon demanding the immediate and unconditional release of Majumdar, who they designated as a 'mass-movement worker'.

The rally marched up to the Jadavpur Police Station, about a kilometre away where it held a protest demonstration before heading back to the varsity campus.

"This arrest is nothing but a farce and a joke. This government is trying to convert Bengal into a police state," alleged university's former teacher Ambikesh Mahapatra.

Mahapatra was himself arrested in 2012 for circulating a satirical picture collage of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the internet.

"We do not believe that Majumdar was in any way involved in the campus violence in question. He is a bright student and the police are making up stories. Their claim that he plotted the violence while sitting in Spain and comparing him with terrorist Aftab Ansari is ridiculous. This only goes to show that free thinkers who speak up against the state atrocities are the soft targets in Bengal," a former student said.

On March 1, state Education minister Bratya Basu was at the varsity's main campus to attend a meeting of the Trinamool Congress-backed professors' body, WBCUPA. On his way out, he faced demonstrations from Left-wing outfits, including SFI, who were demanding that the long-pending students' union elections be conducted at the earliest.

Basu alleged that he was physically heckled by the protestors and his car was vandalised.

On the other hand, the agitating students alleged that the minister's car ran over a student who suffered an eye injury. PTI SMY RG