Birbhum, West Bengal:
In yet another instance of a college principal being harassed by students affiliated to political parties in West Bengal, the head of the Rampurhat College in Birbhum district fainted after heckling students crowded him today. He was taken to a hospital after the incident.
The students were allegedly activists of the Trinamool Chatra Parishad and the Congress Chatra Parishad, the students' wings of the allies who run the West Bengal government.
This is the third incident of violence in a college campus in the state in the last one week.
On January 5, the principal of Raiganj College in north Bengal was dragged out of his room and allegedly beaten up by Trinamool Chatra Parishad activists. They were reportedly angered by his refusal to postpone the students' union elections in the college which is dominated by the Congress Chatra Parishad.
Two days later, the principal of a college at Majhdia was allegedly beaten up by activists belonging to the CPM's student wing, SFI.
The Trinamool activists allegedly involved in the violence at Raigunj College were arrested and subsequently let out on bail. The police, however, acted with more firmness after the incident at Majhdia. The SFI activists were arrested and slapped with non-bailable charges, a move which triggered charges of partisanship.
In another incident, two Trinamool councillors had led a mob to a prominent south Kolkata school and beat up the principal on December 17.