Why protesting doctors in Kolkata distance themselves from student body with RSS links
The little-known Paschim Banga Chhatra Samaj is accused of trying to use the students’ movement for the BJP’s political advantage.
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On the night of August 26, Shubhajit Ruidas, a 25-year-old from Howrah in Bengal, sneaked out of his home.
Word was that the police were picking up members of the Paschim Banga Chhatra Samaj, of which Ruidas was the coordinator. “The police were after us,” he said.
Days before, the student body had called for a protest march to the West Bengal state secretariat to protest against the murder and rape of a junior doctor in a Kolkata government hospital.
The state capital, Kolkata, has been roiled by protests by women and doctors since August 9, when the young doctor was discovered murdered in a seminar room in the hospital. Howrah, where Ruidas lives, is 40-odd km from Kolkata.
Little was known about the Paschim Banga Chhatra Samaj other than that it had been set up amid the gathering anger against the Mamata Banerjee government over its alleged attempts to cover up the crime. Even now, the Chhatra Samaj is not registered as an organisation nor does it run out of an office, one of its convenors told Scroll.
For a student body with little apparent organisational presence, the protest on August 27 was an impressive one, with a couple of thousands attending.
Ruidas was among those leading the march...
