The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) on Tuesday started demolishing three brick structures on the BT Road campus of Rabindra Bharati University following an order from Calcutta High Court.
The civic body also removed banners of the Sara Bangla Trinamul Shikkha Bandhu Samiti from a building on the campus.
One room in the building had been taken over by the organisation, said a CMC official.
A wall in the building had been painted with colours different from the colours in the other parts of the structure, he said. Some murals were painted on the wall, too.
“The murals will be removed and the wall will be painted in a way the other walls have been painted,” the official said.
One of the three brick structures that are being demolished is a logo of Biswa Bangla. The other two are raised platforms for gardening.
In a recent order, the division bench of Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya of the high court asked the KMC to “immediately take steps to remove all the unauthorised alterations, additional constructions, emblems, logos etc. and demolish all such unauthorised construction”.
The bench added: “Defacement or misuse have been made and the same should be restored to its original position.”
A KMC official said the three brick structures stood close to the Emerald Bower building on the campus, which is listed as a Grade I heritage structure in the civic body’s Graded List of Heritage Buildings of Calcutta.
“Their look and colour are not in tune with Emerald Bower and the ambience of the place,” the official said.
“The building was associated with Rabindranath Tagore and his associates. This is where the vice-chancellor has his office now,” said a professor at RBU.
KMC sources said the division bench ordered restoration at both campuses of RBU — on BT Road and in Jorasanko.
On Tuesday, the KMC started the demolition job on the BT Road campus. “It will take a day more to pull down the unauthorised structures. We will also paint the wall (where murals were drawn) in tune with the colours of the rest of the walls of this building,” said the official.
In Jorasanko, too, the floor of one of the rooms has been changed and the doors and windows are painted in colours different from the rest of the building.
The Jorasanko campus, the birthplace and the family home of Rabindranath, is also a Grade I heritage structure.
