High court: Organise Saraswati Puja at college under cop watch
Times of India | 1 February 2025
123456 Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Friday asked police to remove a makeshift pandal outside the main building of Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri Day College and Law College by Saturday noon to allow the law college students to perform Saraswati Puja on the campus. The HC asked the police commissioner to depute a joint commissioner and deploy armed cops to ensure students of both the day and the law colleges could hold their pujas on the campus, and no outsiders were let in.
Officials were asked to video-record the pujas. The next hearing is on Wednesday.
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Deshma Ghosh, a student of the law college, had moved the HC, saying they were being threatened by outsiders over Saraswati Puja. Ghosh's lawyer, Senior Advocate Saptansu Basu, told the HC the students of the two colleges organised separate Saraswati Pujas on the campus. The makeshift pandal outside was hampering the law college students' preparations, and they were being threatened. They said the HC had earlier banned the entry of five such outsiders into the college. Justice Jay Sengupta said as no one owned the outside structure, it should be removed.
The controversy started on Wednesday, when some outsiders reportedly told the law students to stop their puja. Law student Kousik Bandyopadhyay said, "Goons even threatened some girls with rape and death. We filed a cop complaint and moved the high court."