The hawker-eviction drive in the Jadavpur station area in Kolkata on the intervening night of Sunday and Monday turned violent with protesters clashing with the police.
Local hawker unions, backed by left-wing trade organisations, political activists, and a large contingent of Jadavpur University students, took to the streets to physically block the demolitions.
Protesters staged sit-ins directly in front of the advancing bulldozers and stood on top of the machinery in defiance. The police resorted to a baton charge (lathi-charge) to disperse the crowd, resulting in alleged severe injuries to several student leaders, activists, and hawkers.
“Six people, including CPI(M) leader Srijan Bhattacharya, have been arrested. CPI(M) Central Committee member and former Jadavpur MLA Sujan Chakraborty has also been arrested. One person, Ritabrata Ghosh from Ramgarh, is in a critical condition,” said a protester.
In total, nearly 15 people are injured. Sources said CT scans have been conducted on actor-activist Joyraj Bhattacharya and Chakraborty at the nearby KPC Medical College and Hospital to check for internal injuries.
All shops adjacent to Jadavpur railway station have been demolished. For the remaining ones a little distance away, the Indian Railways has issued a 15-day notice.
The eviction drive in Jadavpur comes in the backdrop of several such demolitions in other railway stations and prominent places in Kolkata since the change of guard in the state last month.
Demolition aftermath
Students started a protest in front of Gate No. 4 of Jadavpur University at 3 am on Monday, demanding the immediate release of all detainees.
Condemning the eviction of hawkers and police ‘atrocities’ in Jadavpur, Chandidas Bhattacharya, State Secretary, SUCI (Communist), in a statement said: “The ‘bulldozer politics’ initiated across the state after the BJP came to power claimed its latest victims on the night of June 7 – the hawkers outside the Jadavpur station premises. Under the cover of darkness, this attack targeted Shanti Ghosh, a member of our party’s Kolkata District Committee and Secretary of the Sara Bangla Hawker Union, along with members of various hawker unions, left-wing political activists, cultural movement workers, and students. Despite fierce resistance from Jadavpur University students and local residents, the police launched a brutal assault and demolished the shops using bulldozers.”
“Evicting hawkers from outside the station premises is completely illegal, as it flagrantly violates the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, which is applicable across the entire country… We demand that the state government immediately withdraw this heinous move against the livelihood of poor people,” the statement further said.