A damaged motorcycle on the campus and (right) one of the injured students at the district hospital. Pictures by Kundan Yolmo

Siliguri, July 16: Three students were injured today when a mob of 60-70 people allegedly led by the Chhatra Parishad and the Trinamul Chhatra Parishad stormed Siliguri Polytechnic College. Five teachers, who came to rescue the students when they were being beaten up, were pushed around and heckled.

Subhankar Mondol, Ushinoor Chatterjee and Sumit Pal had come to attend their practical examinations, but were caught in the melee and beaten up with rods and sticks. All three were admitted to Siliguri District hospital. The examination was cancelled.

The attack prompted the SFI, the student wing of the CPM, to organise a road blockade at Hashmi Chawk for nearly one hour from 12.45pm.

Yesterday, a clash with the SFI on the Shew Mangal High School campus, where the admission process for Munshi Prem Chand College was going on, had left five CP and TMCP supporters injured. The wings of the CPM and the Congress had called a student strike in the district today in protest.

The raid on the polytechnic campus was the CP and TMCP’s way to ensure the success of the strike, a teacher of the institute alleged.

“A mob led by the supporters of TMCP and CP forced us to close the college when the counselling for the students was going on,” said Bitan Sinha, a teacher of the pharmacy department. “When we requested them to allow us to continue with the process, the mob attacked our students and did not spare us when we protested.”

While some from the crowd pelted the building with stones and damaged a two wheeler, others went around with rods and sticks beating up anyone who protested.

By the time police led by the Siliguri additional superintendent of the force Rajesh Yadav arrived at 12 noon, the mob had dispersed. Yadav confirmed that he has received a complaint and that some students were beaten up and teachers heckled. “We are looking into the incident.”

The SFI has demanded the immediate arrest of the culprits who were involved in today’s attack as also in the July 9-ransack of Siliguri Commerce College.

“The mob was led by Trinamul leader Krishna Pal,” alleged Sudip Roychoudhury, the Darjeeling district general secretary of the SFI. “When the CP and TMCP supporters found that nobody was responding to their call for a student strike, they tried to use force,” he said.

Pal has denied the allegation and said the DYFI, the youth wing of the CPM, had created the trouble on the polytechnic campus.