Suspected Trinamool Congress workers on Friday allegedly assaulted students of Visva Bharati University in West Bengal’s Santiniketan town while they were protesting against tree felling in the Shyambati locality, The Telegraph reported.
About 30 students sat under a peepal tree that was to be cut down. They sang and performed street plays before allegedly being assaulted. “The police did not stop the attackers,” said Himadrija Chakraborty, a student who lodged a complaint against three local leaders of the Trinamool Congress.
Kazi Nurul Hoda, one of the Trinamool leaders named in the complaint, denied the accusation. “We did not beat up anyone. The protestors stopped the [tree felling] for two hours and we just removed them.”
Lavrenty Repin, a Canadian studying English literature at the university, was among those allegedly beaten up. He was admitted to a hospital. Kamil Siedczynski from Poland, who is pursuing a diploma course in Bengali, managed to escape unharmed. “I was standing at a distance but I saw the men beating up my fellow students,” he said.
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