Kolkata RG Kar Hospital violence: Organised vandalism, say cops after 31 arrests
Times of India | 18 August 2024
Scenes of vandalism on the RG Kar campus on Aug 14 night KOLKATA: On a day Kolkata Police took the number of arrests to 31 from Friday's 25 - at least 20 others have either been identified or detained - for allegedly vandalizing RG Kar hospital on Aug 14, the cops reiterated that the entire incident was "pre-planned and premeditated".
Police sources said that the attackers had travelled in groups - numbering between five and 10 - from not only neighbourhood pockets like Belgachia and Dum Dum but also from clusters like Kamarhati, Barrackpore and Madhyamgram in the north and Behala and Jadavpur in the south.Police have set up 10 teams to carry out raids to nab the accused.
"We have reasons to believe that it was organized since there was a specific movement (from Canal Road side) at exactly the same time when the police barrier was initially being pulled down. Our reinforcements were stopped. As of now, not one accused claims to know another. Yet, we know of Whatsapp groups that were specifically created to arrange the 'Reclaim the Night' but kept discussing the Bangladesh model. There was a clear attempt to hijack the unique protest," said a source.
"It seems that the planners triggered the hooliganism by breaking the police barricades and blocking reinforcements, knowing that the protesters are agitated enough to take the chaos inside the hospital. We are questioning the accused and will know the nature of the organized crime soon," added the police source.
"We have found links when young men had travelled from one protest spot to another, converging at RG Kar as their final destination. Most of them hail from poor families. Several admins of 'Reclaim the Night' groups had even brought a few of them to the venue," said an officer.
Police on Saturday also shared a few more photographs of the accused, even sharing how one of them tried to shave his hair to stop from getting arrested. The cops shared the photo of Tousif and Rohit Saha, both nabbed with help from social media. Two more suspects have been identified from our social media posts. The total number of arrests where social media users helped cops now stands at 13.
Sources said that the role of some youths from the ultra-Left is under police radar. These suspects, they claimed, had played a key role that led to the injury of DC (north) Abhishek Gupta. "The timing of the attack is noteworthy as various important leaders had just left the venue," said a police source.