From Deboshree Roy to Rituparna Sengupta, Biplab Chatterjee, Arindam Sil, Rimjhim Mitra, Usha Uthup, Usha Ganguly, Sandip Ray and Sabyasachi Chakrabarty — all braved surging crowds to see Basu for one last time this afternoon.

“For me, Jyoti Babu is more than just another political figure. My grandfather, Narayan Bhattacharya, was a homoeopath and had treated Basu and his wife for many years. Although I did not know him personally, my family knew him well; hence I felt a sense of kinship and a bit emotional,” said actor Rimjim Mitra, adding the entire initiative to rally the members of the fraternity was taken by actor Arindam Sil, who called them up individually.

Sil, however, said it was minister Kanti Ganguli who had called him up and decided to pay tributes on behalf of the sports and cultural fraternity. “There were nearly 150

people from the sports and the cultural world who wanted to come and pay their last respects to Basu. I walked with the procession till Mohur Kunj. What really stuck me was the depth of feelings people had towards Basu,” he said.

But while the stars may have wanted to say their good-bye quietly, the public was not willing to let them do so. The moment they were spotted, they were mobbed, triggering a mini-stampede in the area. Many like Deboshree Roy were unable to go in after that. “I felt so ill that I just could not go in to pay my last respects. I had gone with some flowers that I wanted to lay on his body but all of a sudden we found ourselves being mobbed by people. As soon as the gates were opened to let us in, some people probably wanted to go in with us. They mobbed us; there was complete chaos. I think Biplab da too fainted and he had to be carried out,” said Roy.

“It was extremely chaotic. For a second, we all thought we were going to die in the crowd,” said Mitra. Sil, however, denied there was a stampede.

“When we were going in, some advocates tried to go in with us. There was some pushing and even Kanti babu fell down. But it was soon sorted out,” said Sil.