Activists of the SFI gather near Mamata Banerjee’s Kalighat residence brandishing posters of Souvik Hazra with a bandaged eye. Pictures by Sanat Kr Sinha and Tamaghna Banerjee

A 19-year-old student of English caught in the crossfire between two unions of Asutosh College lost vision in an eye on Thursday afternoon after being hit by a brick hurled by one of the rioters.

Second-year student Souvik Hazra was having tea with friends outside the main gate of the south Calcutta institution around 3.30pm when the clash between members of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) and the Trinamul Congress Chhatra Parishad escalated into a brick-for-a-brick battle.

Souvik, “a consistently good student” who had scored over 75 per cent in the ISC exam, said he was walking back to the stall after checking what the commotion was all about when the brick struck him, smashing his left eyeball.

“I didn’t know what hit me. The only thing I remember was a severe headache and voices asking me to hold on,” the Behala boy told Metro after undergoing emergency surgery at Calcutta Medical College and Hospital’s Regional Institute of Ophthalmology.

The victim after surgery at Calcutta Medical College and Hospital. Pictures by Sanat Kr Sinha and Tamaghna Banerjee

Doctors said Souvik, the son of a government official, had lost vision in his left eye and was in danger of “sympathetic ophthalmia”, a vision-threatening inflammation in one eye triggered by trauma in the other.

“He has extensive globe rupture, which means the eyeball suffered 180-degree damage. It will be very difficult, if not impossible, to restore vision in the left eye. There is also a threat of vision loss in the other eye,” said a specialist.

Souvik’s father Bidyut Hazra said his son had never been involved in student politics. “He already had a problem in his right leg (Souvik limps) and now this. His future is in jeopardy for no fault of his,” he cried.

However, in a move mirroring the politics of the day, the SFI was quick to claim Souvik as its own and take out a procession with posters of his bandaged face. The 200-odd protesters blocked the busy Hazra crossing for over an hour, throwing traffic haywire from Hazra to Southern Avenue and Alipore to almost Diamond Harbour Road. The students then marched towards Harish Chatterjee Street around 5.45pm to stage a demonstration outside Mamata Banerjee’s house.

Police failed to anticipate what the students were up to and were reduced to following rather than stopping the march towards Mamata’s house as traffic snarls held them up at several places.

The police team finally caught up with the procession less than 200 metres from the railway minister’s house. Deputy commissioner of police Supratim Sarkar was seen pleading with the students to call off the protest. Some local CPM leaders too arrived at the spot, but they wouldn’t relent.

The stalemate continued for around an hour, by which time an army of Trinamul student activists led by party leaders like Madan Mitra and Bablu Karim arrived for a second face-off with the SFI.

Outnumbered by the Trinamul brigade — several protesters were allegedly assaulted — the SFI activists started running in all directions, triggering a near-stampede and adding to the traffic snarl on the main road.

When the SFI brigade regrouped near Hazra, Trinamul supporters followed them there. The Rapid Action Force formed a human wall between the two sides.

Trinamul had planned to lay siege to Palm Avenue, where chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee lives, in the evening but it was cancelled at the behest of senior party leaders.

Mamata, who was in Balurghat during the day, issued a statement warning chief minister Bhattacharjee that she would not let him “remain in peace” if anybody made a fresh attempt to “gherao” her home.

“I am accepting the SFI’s challenge. Let them surround my house to attack me. I know that all this is being done at the chief minister’s behest. I am least bothered about my security but people will not tolerate such hooliganism,” she added, blurring the line between the campus and the political cauldron.

No senior Left Front leader was available for comment on the day’s happenings, which had started with a black-badge protest by the SFI at Asutosh College over an alleged attack by Trinamul student activists on some college teachers last Tuesday.

“We had barely stepped out of the college gate when they started hurling bricks at us. It was an unprovoked attack,” said Partha Sheel, secretary of the institution’s SFI unit.

Asutosh College, which has an SFI-ruled union, is now the lone red post in what has turned into a green zone.

“One party is losing ground while the other is gaining.... So, violence is bound to happen,” insisted Trinamul leader Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay.

In Howrah, campus anarchy claimed a life on Thursday with Swapan Koley, a second-year BCom student of Prabhu Jagabandhu College in Andul, being fatally injured during a clash between SFI and Trinamul student activists. Three other students and two teachers suffered injuries.

The SFI has called a strike on Monday to protest the day’s incidents.