Kolkata: Amra Tilottoma, the organizers of Sunday’s protest march from College Square to Esplanade, called off their stir at 4 am with a charter of demands for various administrative authorities of the state to acknowledge. However, the collective is not insisting on the CM’s resignation. The primary demand is the immediate suspension and cancellation of licence of former RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh and the identification of those who “manipulated evidence”, followed by the filing of an FIR against the perpetrators.
Actor Bidipta Chakraborty, who proceeded directly to the shooting of a daily soap titled “Pherari Mon” after participating in the sit-in demonstration at Esplanade till 4 am, said: “We are not demanding anyone’s resignation.However, we are appalled by the audacity with which crimes against women and children across the state are emerging. The authorities must implement stringent measures to instil fear and deter perpetrators. If someone believes they are incapable of fulfilling that responsibility, it is crucial for them to step down from their position and allow a competent individual to assume that role.”
Birsa Dasgupta, who is a member of this collective, told TOI: “At this point, we have only demanded the suspension of Sandip Ghosh. After the demonstration ended at 4 am, we read out our charter of demands in front of the public. Among our demands are democratic elections of ICC and LCC, with increased presence of women there and stringent actions and necessary measures to end the syndicate rule.”
Asked if demanding the resignation of the police commissioner is part of the agenda of the collective, Rimjhim Sinha, who initiated the ‘Reclaim the Night’ movement, said: “That is part of the junior doctors’ demands. We are standing in solidarity with their movement but our demands are different.”
The collective has also asked for action against “the terrible threat culture that has been created in academic, health and other fields”.
It has demanded more female public transport drivers and asked the govt to take special training initiatives for more women civic volunteers. Apart from clean and gender-neutral washrooms, the demands include compulsory introduction of gender equality, human rights and civic right lessons in school curriculum and improvement of infrastructure of govt hospitals and health centres. They want CCTV cameras to be installed and kept in working condition at all offices and institutions and failure to do so be treated as a criminal offence.