Raid at JU students’ house was wrong, CM admits

Kolkata, June 10 The Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has admitted that the recent police action against woman students of Jadavpur University was inappropriate. “The manner in which the police went to interrogate the five girl students in Jadavpur was wrong,” he said at the Writer's Buildings on Tuesday. Incidentally, Jadavpur is the constituency of the Chief Minister.

A huge contingent of policemen had raided the house of the girl students in Friends’ Row, Jadavpur, on June 7. The police went there after a tip-off from local CPM cadres that the girls were Maoists and a number of the activists were holed up in the house. The police tried to force their way into the house and conduct a search, even though they were not carrying a search warrant.

Reacting to the CM’s statement, Manas Bhuniya, a Congress leader, said, “The Chief Minister always offers apologies after a misdeed. The police officers should be suspended. How can the police act on a tip-off from CPM cadres?”

Jayita Das, one of the students, said: “The incident reminds us of their brutality in Nandigram.”

The girls said that they worked with the Matangini Mahila Samiti in Nandigram, which was formed to help local women resist the land acquisition.