Members of a fringe ultra left students’ body of Jadavpur University damaged a bust of Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee at Kalighat in South Kolkata. The vandalism occurred on Wednesday (7 March) morning just a stone’s throw from the house of Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has vociferously protested against the bringing down of statues of Lenin in Tripura and mourned the defeat of the Marxists there.

The police have arrested five members of the students’ body that calls itself ‘radical’ and advocates communist dictatorship in India, secession for Kashmir, gifting Arunachal Pradesh to China, and supports Maoist insurgency. This students’ group of Jadavpur University, which has emerged as a hotbed of anti-national activities and breeding ground of ‘breaking India’ elements, claimed that its members threw stones at the bust of Mookerjee and then doused it with black paint.

A few members of the radical outfit confessed they were emboldened by Banerjee’s condemnation of the toppling of statues of Lenin in Tripura and her anti-BJP stance and had reckoned that they would not be penalised for vandalising the bust of Mookerjee, who saved Bengal from becoming part of erstwhile East Pakistan. How they could carry on the vandalism at a high-security zone around the Chief Minister’s residence is puzzling.

Also read: https://swarajyamag.com/politics/a-date-that-bengal-should-not-have-forgotten