Kolkata:
Student protestors, demanding action on the Saradha chit-fund scam, clashed with the police in Central Kolkata today. Three-thousand protestors from the student wing of the Socialist Unity Centre of India were marching towards the Writers' Building, the secretariat of the West Bengal government, near which prohibitory orders are in place.
Several of the student protestors were injured when the police retorted to lathi-charge to stop them from reaching Writers' Building. A policeman has also been severely injured.
Socialist Unity Centre of India has been an ally of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress; both parties fought the last Lok Sabha polls together.
"Mamata Banerjee's regime has scant respect for democratic rights....She is behaving like an autocrat and is using police force. This is becoming a police state," CPM leader Mohammad Salim said.
The student protestors were demanding action against Sudipta Sen, head of the Saradha Group, which collapsed last month. Mr Sen was arrested, along with two colleagues, from Jammu and Kashmir last month, days after he went missing as cheques from the chit fund that he ran began to bounce. The collapse of his business empire has left lakhs of small investors bereft of their savings.
Along with action against Mr Sen, the students were also protesting against the rising incidents of violence against women.