Mass violence erupted in West Bengal's Jadavpur University when Union Minister for the environment, forest and climate change Babul Supriyo came to campus to attend a seminar organized by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the RSS.
While Babul Supriyo was manhandled and thrashed by the students when he entered the campus, later the protest escalated when alleged ABVP members ransacked the university offices and set fire to a JU gate.
Here is what happened at Jadavpur University on Wednesday:
Babul Supriyo, went to the Jadavpur University at around 2.30 pm to address the seminar by ABVP at an auditorium inside the campus.
Protesting his presence, the Jadavpur University students agitated, raising slogans and holding black flags.
The union minister who was accompanied by Agnimitra Paul, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, was initially stopped from entering and was left waiting just inside the gate for around one-and-half hours by the Left students' unions, who raised slogans 'Babul Supriyo Go Back' and waved black flags at him.
The protestors alleged that Babul Supriyo misbehaved with the agitating students, many of whom were women.
As the situation escalated, West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, too, rushed to Jadavpur University along with a large police force to the rescue of Babul Supriyo. The governor, who is the chancellor of the university, too, faced demonstrations by the students belonging to SFI, Left-leaning AFSU and FETSU and AISA, a Naxalite students wing and a few members of the TMCP.
They blocked his way and thumped the bonnet of his vehicle as the policemen kept requesting them to withdraw.
Dhankhar and Babul Supriyo finally left the campus late in the evening hours after the university teachers stepped in and persuaded the agitating students to lift their blockade, a spokesman of Jadavpur University Teachers Association (JUTA) said.
Meanwhile, stick-wielding supporters of ABVP, who had held a seminar in the campus during the day which sparked off the unrest at the university, allegedly vandalised the room of the Arts Faculty Students Union (AFSU).
Shouting 'Jai Shree Ram' and 'Bharat Mata ki Jai', the ABVP supporters were seen setting fire to furniture, computers and ceiling fans of the room and covering the signage outside it with black colour. They even painted ABVP on the wall of the room and burnt tyres before gate number four of the university.
The governor left in his vehicle through gate number three, university sources said.
A day after the Jadavpur University ruckus, Babul Supriyo alleged that he was manhandled by the university students. He also accused the Mamata Banerjee government of intentionally not coming to his rescue. The union minister also alleged that he was "assaulted, kicked, punched" by the students.
Speaking to India Today TV, Babul Supriyo said, "They kicked me, punched me, caught my hair ... pulled me from one end to another. These were apparently students. They hit me again with wooden sticks on my hand after I came down from the programme."
Babul Supriyo also claimed that the protesters tried to provoke him by "openly referring to themselves as Naxals" and accused the university Vice-Chancellor of not doing anything despite knowing it was about to happen.
The Trinamool Congress, in a statement, said that the BJP leader went to the university to attend the programme "without informing the government". The party also said that the governor also went to the university without taking the state government into confidence. "CM Mamata Banerjee requested him several times that the Governor being the constitutional head need not go at this moment. But instead of taking the government into confidence, the Governor went there to help BJP. Before going there, he released two press statements that I quote "this is a very serious reflection on the law and order in the State'," the TMC statement read.
Following the TMC's statement, West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar justified his visit to the university to rescue Union minister Babul Supriyo, saying he waited for "sufficient time" after speaking to the chief minister and left for the institute after "the situation did not show any change".
Meanwhile, the SFI and the ABVP on Friday took out rallies in the city and elsewhere in the state blaming each other for the violence in the Jadavpur University campus on Thursday.
Workers of the SFI held a rally from Dhakuria to the JU campus to protest against the violence, while ABVP activists organised a protest march near Mahatma Gandhi's statue in Mayo Road against the alleged assault on him.