‘Our opposition to CPM-backed SFI has earned us the Maoist tag’

Kolkata, June 9 Jadavpur University (JU) has once again become the hub of controversies with the police and alleged CPM cadres raiding the rented residence of five women students in Palbazar on Saturday.
While the Bengal Engineering and Science University and Presidency College have seen recent spurts of clashes between students belonging to different political outfits, the students of Jadavpur University, were the first to be labeled as probable Maoist activists.
“From the time we had started to put up a strong opposition against the CPM-backed Student’s Federation of India (SFI), we have been labeled as Maoists. Now they have started to harass us,” said Debolina Chakraborty, one of the students whose house was raided on Saturday.
On the police raid, Home Secretary Ashok Mohan Chakrabarty said: “I don’t know why the police took such an action. I am waiting for the report to check the details.”
The five students are the members of the Matangini Mahila Samity (MMS).
The outfit was active in Nandigram during the state government’s decision to acquire land for industrialisation.
Apart from Chakraborty, who is the secretary of MMS, the other four girls were also the members of the outfit.
“The house at Palbazar is our local office where we discuss issues under the banner of MMS. We have units in Dankuni, Nandigram, Singur but they have nothing to do with politics,” said Chakraborty.