Chennai/Puducherry:
Eighty Students Federation of India (SFI) activists were arrested in Chennai and in Puducherry on Wednesday while protesting against the death of SFI leader Sudipto Gupta allegedly in police custody in Kolkata.
In Chennai, thirty SFI activists burnt an effigy of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and raised slogans against her, alleging that Sudipto's death was not an accident as claimed by police, but a murder and demanded that those responsible be arrested.
In the union territory, 50 SFI activists staged a demonstration and burnt an effigy of Mamata Banerjee and shouted slogans.
Suditpo Gupta, a 22-year-old SFI leader and an MA student of Rabindra Bharati University was arrested on Tuesday during a rally and law violation programme to demand holding of union elections.
He fell from a bus and his head hit a lamp post, when he and other arrested SFI members were being taken to the Presidency Jail.
His death has triggered a row with police claiming it was an accident while CPI-M alleged that he succumbed to injuries sustained in police lathicharge.