RG Kar protests spill over to football pitch, unite MB, EB fans
Times of India | 19 August 2024
12 Kolkata: Thousands of Mohun Bagan and East Bengal fans were joined by some Mohammedan Sporting supporters as protests against the R G Kar rape-murder spilled over to the football field on Sunday evening.
Protesters gathered outside the Salt Lake Stadium, ignoring prohibitory orders imposed by Bidhannagar Police barely an hour before the scheduled protest, leading to a lathi-charge on a section of protesters and the detention of a few.
The Mohun Bagan-East Bengal Durand Cup derby was slated for Sunday before being abruptly cancelled less than 24 hours before the match, as cops cited intelligence inputs that a section of protesters would foment trouble. However, even with the match cancelled, thousands of supporters — clad in their team colours — waving flags and holding banners, gathered outside the stadium, united not by the game on the field but by a shared demand for justice.
From the afternoon, cops had sealed entry and exit points of Salt Lake, where most of the stadium's gates are located. As a result, football fans started gathering outside the VVIP gate of the stadium on the EM Bypass, where a contingent of 1,500 cops in riot gear began shooing them away.
The fans were driven beyond a 200-metre radius of the stadium by cops, citing prohibitory orders. After protesters began shouting slogans and camping there while blocking the Bypass, a joint force of Bidhannagar and Kolkata Police resorted to a lathi-charge to drive the protesters away. Seeing an even larger crowd merge towards the stadium, Kolkata Police also clamped prohibitory orders along the pavements and service roads along Narkeldanga Main Road and Beleghata Main Road.
However, the protesters' voices could not be muffled. They blocked both flanks of the Bypass, holding placards and banners in support of the RG Kar victim late into the evening. The protest had started around 4pm and normality was restored only seven hours later, around 11pm.
Among the protesters was Mohun Bagan captain Subhashis Bose and his wife. "I've joined this protest as a citizen. This is my duty. Let this fight for justice continue. Let the perpetrators be caught and punished," Bose said. Several other footballers — such as East Bengal's Sauvik Chakrabarti and Kerala Blasters defender Pritam Kotal — also posted messages of solidarity on social media.
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Behala resident Souvick Banerjee, an East Bengal supporter who was there outside the stadium with a group of friends, said: "Many of us wanted to issue a peaceful message from the football gallery, holding up banners, but we had no intention of creating any law-and-order problems. But they first stopped the match and then even tried to throttle our voices."
Joydip Das, a Mohun Bagan supporter from Barasat, said he was outside the stadium sporting a Mohun Bagan jersey out of sheer passion for the game and for the cause of humanity. "Today, nothing can separate the three clubs. We have got united for a cause, which is much bigger than any club or politics. But police and the state, rather than allowing us to voice our protest, lathi-charged us and detained multiple protesters. This is unacceptable," he said.
Even heavy rain through the evening could not deter the protesters, as slogans like "Ghoti Bangal ak swar, justice for RG Kar (Ghoti and Bangal demand justice for RG Kar in one voice)" and "Dui gallery aki swar, justice for RG Kar (One chant for both galleries, justice for RG Kar)" rent the air.
A senior Bidhannagar cop denied lathi-charging at first, clarifying that there was only a peaceful conversation with the protesters. "We must understand that when a prohibitory order is in place, it cannot be violated. We had initially shifted the protesters outside the 200-metre zone outside the prohibition zone. But there was a section, which attempted to break the barricade and were running towards the stadium, and we had to forcibly push them back," said the officer.