The Mamata Banerjee government, on the back foot politically after the April 3 Supreme Court verdict dismissing 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff over a tainted recruitment process, received another blow on Wednesday as protesting teachers hit out at the state and the ruling Trinamool over police assault.

The chief minister deployed three senior bureaucrats, headed by chief secretary Manoj Pant, for damage control within hours of the teachers being baton-charged and kicked by the police in Calcutta's Kasba.

“Nobody should take the law into their own hands after being instigated by some people…. I would request the teachers to go to school and attend classes as advised by the chief minister,” said chief secretary Pant, who claimed that the agitations lined up in Calcutta and the districts by the aggrieved teachers were undesirable.

Pant was addressing journalists, accompanied by city police commissioner Manoj Verma and ADG (law and order), Jawed Shamim.

A TMC veteran said the Kasba incident "rubbed salt into the existing wound of the government".

"The police act, captured live on camera, not only brought embarrassment to the party but also handed the Opposition a new weapon to corner us," said the leader.

A source said Pant's news meet indicated the government's desperation for a damage control strategy, realising the political fallout of the visuals showing cops assaulting teachers.

"Soon after the incident, the chief minister held a meeting with the top brass and sent out a message that the agitation should be handled delicately," a source in the government said.

Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari flayed Mamata for fielding Pant and two other senior police officers. "Why did the chief minister not come to address the news conference? As the situation was bad, the chief minister fielded the chief secretary. We don't need such a government where the police kick teachers," said Adhikari.

Several BJP MLAs marched to the Kolkata Police headquarters at Lalbazar to protest against the assault. As they staged a blockade, police picked them up in waiting vans to clear the area.

A bureaucrat said Mamata wanted to ensure that the agitation did not turn into a mass movement like the one after the RG Kar rape and murder.

“So far, it is an agitation by the teachers who lost their jobs. Now, if the teachers are beaten up while going to submit a memorandum, it can soon turn into a mass agitation. Any ruling party would like to avert a situation like this ahead of polls,” said an official.

Another official said there was a plan behind Mamata's appeal to teachers to return to school.

“If the teachers continued to take classes, they would not have been able to agitate. But things did not go as planned as most teachers did not join schools. This is why the chief minister sent senior officials to ensure that the grievances of the teachers following the Kasba incident are addressed. Also, a message can be sent to teachers that only the state government can help them now by moving a review petition in the Supreme Court,” said the official.

BJP state chief Sukanta Majumdar gave the Kasba incident a communal spin, referring to Tuesday's violence in Murshidabad's Jangipur where two police vehicles were burnt in anti-Waqf Act protests.

"The people of Bengal are surprised by the shift in police conduct in 24 hours. The police couldn’t act when two of their vehicles were torched in Murshidabad, but came down heavily on teachers.... It is very shameful," said Majumdar.

CPM politburo member Ram Chandra Dome said the assault proved Bengal had no democratic environment.

"Here, teachers who lost their jobs due to the government’s fault were beaten up by police. It proves there is no democratic space in the state for peaceful protests," he said.

The TMC officially tried to shift the blame for the chaos in Kasba and other districts to the Opposition. "The chief minister is trying to find a solution.... Political parties opposing her efforts have sent their cadres to create unrest," said TMC leader Kunal Ghosh. "It is true that a section of teachers, influenced by provocation, participated in the incident."