Kolkata: The post-midnight vandalism at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital was the result of an "assessment failure" by Kolkata Police, city commissioner Vineet Goyal admitted on Friday, adding that they had so far arrested 25 people, including two women, for the ransack, reports Dwaipayan Ghosh.
"You can call it our failure. The ‘Reclaim The Night' protests were supposed to be spontaneous and peaceful.We had no input that it would lead to violence at the hospital. We make assessments based on inputs on the ground and social media. It is relatively difficult to control spontaneous gatherings because they lack a leader. We assumed the protests would be peaceful but our assessment went wrong," Goyal told reporters at Lalbazar.
The CP said nine of the 25 arrested were identified with the help of people — police had released pictures of the suspects on social media — and include cab drivers, delivery boys, menial workers and even students. They do not hail from any specific area but are residents of Narkeldanga, Dum Dum, Belgachhia slum and Howrah among others.
Goyal denied there was less security at RG Kar hospital that night. "There were gatherings at multiple places with women coming from various locations, some of them representing the civil society. At RG Kar, there was a DCP (North) leading the force. Another team led by an additional CP was stationed at Shyambazar," claimed Goyal.
Asked why the cops fled when the vandals went on the rampage, Goyal said, "The force did everything to stop the mob. But after the barricade came down, they were heavily outnumbered. At least 15 of our men were injured, three of them seriously. The DCP was hit on them, became unconscious and remained untraced for around an hour. The force thus got disorganised. We still followed our policy of using minimal force and it took us some time to reorganize ourselves. We don't have unlimited resources and the deployment was to the best of our abilities."
On Friday, police posted more pictures on social media of those involved in the vandalism and urged people to identify them and inform their local police stations. "It does not matter if they are from X,Y, Z party. We will take action," Goyal said.
A senior Kolkata Police official said the vandalism was "pre-planned and organised" as there was a specific attempt to block reinforcements after the police barrier was breached at RG Kar. "As of now, the accused claim not to know one another but we know of social media groups that were specifically created to arrange the ‘Reclaim-the-Night' protests but kept discussing the Bangladesh model. There was a clear attempt to hijack the protest," he said.