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Kolkata: Swarnabha Banerjee was just trying to leave for home in Dum Dum, around 24 kilometres from Panchasayar, on the evening of September 27, when things got “really bad” at the main gate of Kolkata’s Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute.

“At around 7 pm on Sunday, when outsiders whom we identified as goons from the Bharatiya Janata Party began gathering from all sides, it seemed that the main gate might give way under the pressure. I felt, then, that the best thing for me would be to leave for home,” he said.

The moment he stepped outside, he said, he was attacked.

“A group virtually pounced on me. A young man with his hair tied in a ponytail was leading the attack. They verbally abused me as they rained blows on me. Of course, they didn’t say what crime I or the students of the institute had committed. Gradually, the number of attackers increased. I was beaten so badly that my clothes were torn and I started bleeding,” Banerjee said.

In desperation, he managed to board the first bus he could flag down, but he said that the violence did not stop there.

“I saw a bus heading towards Garia and got on it, but even that did not save me. The bus stopped at a traffic signal, and the BJP leader with the ponytail, accompanied by four or five others, got onto the bus, beat me and dragged me off. The other passengers could not understand what was happening,” Banerjee said.

Left bruised and bleeding, Banerjee was eventually able to free himself. He has since received treatment at a government hospital and filed an attempt to murder complaint at the Survey Park police station.

“I cannot imagine why an ordinary student of SRFTI could become such a target of the BJP. I am a local student in my batch, so instead of staying in the hostel I commute from home. I am quite unwell and my family is frightened,” he said.

A photograph clicked by SRFTI teacher........

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