Kolkata: In a double whammy for the Mamata Banerjee-led government on Tuesday, the Supreme Court raised serious questions on the selection criteria and appointment process of the Civic Volunteers in the state police apparatus while a showdown of the agitating junior doctors, civil society members, senior physicians and the people on the streets of Kolkata took the sheen off the Durga Puja carnival slated for the day.
Apart from the Civic Volunteers's recruitment issue, an initiative by the Trinamool Congress government after it came to power in 2011, the Kolkata Police drew flak from the Calcutta High Court after it set aside all prohibitory orders clamped on the roads leading to the Durga Puja immersion carnival organized by the state government.
Initially, the Kolkata Police had imposed prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) banning the assembly of more than five persons adjacent to the Red Road, the designated spot for the carnival. The police, in their order, had widened the prohibitory orders in all adjacent roads to the Red Road. The order had cited that in apprehension of breach of law and order as well as in anticipation of disrupting the carnival. The restriction was imposed on Mayo Road, the stretch from Dorina Crossing to Press Club, the Academy of Fine Arts area, Rani Rashmoni Avenue, Metro Y channel and Outram Road.
The move was in direct conflict with the calls for a ‘Droha (protest) Carnival' called by the protesting junior doctors and other doctors’ organisations who had been agitating over the R G Kar rape and murder incident and alleged rampant malpractices in the state’s health department.
The junior doctors had moved the Calcutta High Court challenging the imposition of the prohibitory orders and a little after 3 pm, Justice Ravi Kishan Kapur set aside the restrictions. The court also ordered the removal of barricades along all roads leading to the Red Road. Earlier, the High Court had cleared the decks for another protest rally by citizens from College Square to Raja Subodh Mullick Square in Central Kolkata, backed by the opposition BJP.
As the news from the High Court reached Dorina Crossing and the makeshift dias of protesting junior doctors on a relay hunger strike since October 5 at Esplanade, jubilation broke out among thousands of protesters who had gathered to participate in the protest carnival. The numbers at the protest site bet hands down the tepid response that the immersion carnival drew, which was attended by Trinamool supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and a few Tollywood artists, some of whom are also MLAs and MPs of the ruling party.
Protesters danced to rhythmic beats of traditional drums or dhaks, blew conch shells and raised slogans while proceeding towards Rani Rashmoni Avenue after the police pulled down the iron barricades put up on the roads. People from all walks of life took to the streets and joined the agitating doctors in demand of justice for the slain trainee medic of R G Kar Medical College and Hospital and transparency in the health sector.