Tor baba, parley dhore dekha (Your dad, catch us if you can).

This is how a gang of rowdies that has made the hostel of Lady Brabourne College their den taunted the cops last Friday.

The team from Beniapukur police station allegedly didn't even bother going after the gang, let alone catch them, according to scores of girls harassed night after night by drunken men clambering up a drainpipe to reach their hostel's roof and then knock on their doors past midnight.

The 180 girls staying in the hostel staged a demonstration outside their principal's office on Monday, accusing the police of doing little to spare them their everyday torment.

The hostel is on Surhawardi Avenue, a stone's throw from the 75-year-old college named after the wife of Lord Brabourne, the Governor of Bengal from 1937 till February 1939.

The hostel inmates said they were even more scared of the gang after what happened on Friday night. The police had been called after the students decided 'enough was enough' and demanded that the superintendent of the hostel seek help.

One of the girls said she and her friends had been spending sleepless nights and were afraid to step out of their rooms at night to even go to the washroom.

The father of another girl calls his daughter first thing in the morning every day and advises her to return home. She is scared but not prepared to give in yet.

Many of the girls who participated in the demonstration said they had complained to the superintendent of the hostel and her assistant on several occasions. 'They never took us seriously, though the superintendent lives in the hostel and knows everything,' a student said.

Superintendent Sudipta Bhakat and assistant superintendent Binata Mondal couldn't be reached for comment on Monday.

Principal Siuli Sarkar contested the allegations against her colleagues. She said the police were called immediately after receiving a complaint.

On Friday night, the assistant superintendent apparently dialled Beniapukur police station after the girls insisted that a complaint be lodged.

When the police team was inspecting the rooftop around 1.30am, five men were standing on the road in front, one of the girls said. 'A policeman asked them who they were and what were they doing near a girls' hostel so late in the night. One of the youths answered, ' Tor baba...(your father)', and dared the cops to catch them,' she recounted.

A senior police officer denied that anything like that happened. He said the principal lodged a complaint on Saturday but didn't mention a specific incident or person. 'No specific case has been started, there's only a general diary entry,' he said.

On November 14, a policeman had been caught on camera ducking under a table and shielding himself with a file while his colleagues ran for cover elsewhere during a mob attack on Alipore police station. The mob, led by Trinamul leaders, forcibly freed 13 people who had been rounded up for resisting the PWD's attempt to reclaim encroached land.

After the assault, the police picked up five persons who it turned out had little to do with the attack.

On November 29, three IPS officers were among a group of cops chased and assaulted by participants in a rally in the heart of Calcutta.

At Lady Brabourne, the tease gang returned to the campus even after the principal had filed a formal complaint on Saturday.

'They were there on Saturday night and they came back again on Sunday. The police did nothing,' a student said. 'We went through the same horror. And we had no one to go to for relief. Who will protect us if the police don't take us seriously?' she said.

She was among the 180 girls who missed classes on Monday and sat in front of the college principal's chamber for over three hours to protest the college's alleged failure to convey to the police the seriousness of threat they were facing.

Principal Sarkar said she was 'stunned' by the way the outsiders identified by the girls had dared the police. 'How could they threaten the police?' she said.

But the police found Sarkar's complaint 'vague' and based on 'apprehensions'.

'The letter that the college principal submitted on Saturday says that with so many new construction sites in the area of the college, she is apprehensive about the safety and security of her students. She wanted police patrolling intensified in the area,' said an officer at Beniapukur police station.

Police officers said that even when asked for 'specific instances', Sarkar had denied knowledge about how the girls were being tormented. 'There is no scope to draw up an FIR based on the general letter of complaint we have received from the college principal. A general diary entry has been made. We will start a case the moment we receive a specific complaint,' said a senior officer of the city police's eastern suburban division.

Sarkar said she had conveyed whatever the girls told her to the police. 'What I told the police is just what the girls told me in writing. They wrote to me on Saturday, saying that they have been hearing loud footsteps and knocks on their doors. I have asked the police to investigate the source of such sounds.'

According to one student, a police officer asked her and the other girls on Saturday night if they were sure it wasn't a cat making all the noise. He also wanted to know if they were scared of ghosts.

Principal Sarkar corroborated the ghost theory. 'One of them (a cop) told me after inspecting the building that it appears to be the handiwork of some apparition,' she said.

She had allegedly dismissed the students' demand for extra security last Saturday. On Monday, she promised CCTV cameras and powerful lighting in the hostel compound.

'When we had gone to report the trespass and threats to the principal and seek more security on the premises, she said nothing would happen in at least six months,' said one student.

Sarkar denied having any such conversation with the students on Saturday.