After the day-long protests, the students were lathi-charged by the police but were later given an assurance of a meeting with the School Education Minister Partha De next week.

Thousands of students marched from College Square at 1 pm and reached Esplanade by 3 pm, where they burnt an effigy of the school education minister. As they began to proceed towards the Writers’ Buildings, they were confronted by the police, which had to resort to a lathi-charge, injuring several protesters, one of them seriously.

The police rounded up 136 students and took them to the Lalbazar police headquarters. The detained students were finally released at 5.30 pm.

Meanwhile, another group of about 500 PTTI students squatted on the tracks at Bagnan station for about 40 minutes, disrupting railway traffic in the region. Blockades on tracks were also put up at Baghajatin in South 24-Parganas, Malda, Burdwan and other places across the state.

Later, De called both groups of students and asked them to meet him on February 16. “We do not want to meet the minister. What is the point of holding such meetings that end without any solution?

Both the Centre and the state are blaming each other. We want tripartite talks or else we will not allow the minister to enter Bikash Bhavan,” said Pintu Parui, a student leader.

The students also vented their anger on Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee who avoided any reference to the PTTI stalemate at a programme to celebrate 75 years of a primary teachers’ organisation recently.

Rail services bear the brunt
Train services were disrupted during the peak hours today as different groups of protesters vent their anger at the railways. Traffic was affected for about one hour in the Howrah-Bandel and Shaorapuli-Tarekeshwar section of Eastern Railway.

Protesting against the “unnatural” death of GRP cop Arindam Manna, Youth Congress workers held a blockade on the rail tracks at Dasnagar station. The party had called a 12-hr bandh called at Dasnagar.

“The blockade was lifted after 15-20 minutes following the intervention of the police. Three long-distance trains were detained while 12 locals had to be rescheduled,” said an official of Eastern Railway.

In a separate incident, protesting PTTI students squatted on the tracks at Bagnan station for about 40 minutes. “About 500 students squatted on the rail tracks today from 9:25 am to 10:15 am at Bagnan station,” said a student leader.