A fourth-year student of South Calcutta Law College was allegedly beaten up on two occasions for protesting Monojit Mishra’s activities on the campus — in December 2023 and September 2024.

The student had lodged complaints with Kasba police station after each alleged assault. But no action was taken, the student said.

The student shares his account with The Telegraph. The italicised portions have been added by this newspaper for context.

Mishra would interfere in the college administration and campus politics despite being a former student. A section of the college administration pampered him and looked the other way.

Along with some other students, I was against the growing clout of an outsider in the affairs of the college. As punishment for resisting this, I was beaten up at the gates of the college by some of Mishra’s aides in December 2023. He had called me minutes before I was assaulted, vowing to teach me a lesson.

Two of my batchmates, who were women and also opposed to Mishra’s growing clout, quit the college as they were traumatised by what happened to me. I, too, stopped going to college for months after that.

Last year, I mobilised fellow students and staff of the college for the Reclaim the Night rally (on the eve of Independence Day 2024 after the rape and murder of the junior doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital).

Mishra warned me not to mobilise people for the gathering.

I was part of the Trinamool students’ unit at that time.

“Why are you protesting against the state government?” Mishra asked me.

I replied that the spontaneous protests were beyond petty politics. It was a larger movement for women’s safety and equality, I told him.

We went to a rally at Gariahat as planned. Many students and college staff were there. (Gariahat was one of the numerous venues of the unprecedented protests that took the city by storm.)

Mishra had been warning me even though he had put up a Facebook post in support of the Reclaim the Night rally.

The next month, in September 2024, Mishra was recruited as a casual employee of the college. I was among the students who were opposed to his recruitment because of his past.

(A known history-sheeter, Mishra has been chargesheeted in several earlier cases, including for harassing women, assault, damaging property, and theft, police said)

We did not hold back and were vocal against the recruitment. Mishra’s fury multiplied.

On September 7, he had several students, including a junior, call me several times for some urgent work. I was asked to visit Lake Market.

When I reached the spot late in the evening, I was surrounded by bike-borne men who forced me to a deserted spot behind Lake Mall. Mishra was waiting there. They ganged up and beat me black and blue. My head was hit with a stone. Mishra was filming the assault.

I suffered multiple injuries and needed treatment at MR Bangur hospital.

Mishra should have been brought to the book long ago. His unchecked clout led to the horrific crime, which could well have been averted had the powers that be acted in time.