Students Injured in Attack at Kolkata Film Institute by RSS-Affiliated Workers

Kolkata : Students at Kolkata’s prestigious Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) were on September 27 subjected to a brutal attack by workers claiming to be affiliated to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Eight students were seriously injured in the attack, and a librarian and several teachers who tried to intervene were also left bleeding. Over 150 students sustained injuries of varying degrees, say students. At least four students displayed injuries commensurate with those perpetrated with knives. At around 7 pm, the institute’s gates were shut and some of the attackers were removed from the premises, police sources said. Several students reportedly had their mobile phones and other possessions snatched. A meeting by an RSS body On Sunday, a meeting organised in the name of the Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat, a supposed consumer awareness organisation affiliated with the RSS, began on the main theatre stage of the film institute. Student union president Blossom Hazarika said that none of the students had been informed about the meeting and the union had no knowledge of how the organisation – seemingly unconnected with cinema – had been allowed to hold a meeting there. Based on students’ accounts, at around 2 pm, workers claiming to be part of the BJP arrived and began forcibly removing students who were at the hall, pushing them aside and grabbing them by the neck. Students engage with the Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat members at the main theatre stage in which the RSS body was holding its meeting. The students responded, saying that given the nature of the work carried out at the institute, no meeting should be held on the theatre stage without prior notice. ‘Many more BJP workers had been waiting there’ Student Neeraj Kumar, an eyewitness, told The Wire: “It was as if they had been waiting for us to protest. Within moments, a group of them began attacking us with bamboo poles and sticks. They started hurling all kinds of abuses at us, calling us left-wing extremists, Bangladeshis and other things. Suddenly, a group of them went outside and, as soon as they called out, many more BJP workers who had been waiting there came and began attacking us.” Kumar said students were subjected to brutal violence: “They started beating the students indiscriminately. They tried to pull off the clothes of female students and hurled all kinds of abuse at the students, calling them traitors, cockroaches and so on.” Kumar noted that students ran into the library and were followed: “The students then took shelter in the library to save their lives. They entered the library as well. They brutally assaulted the librarian too.” Police, under the control of the five-month-old BJP government in Bengal, turned their ire on the students, according to Kumar: “The Panchasayar police arrived an hour after the incident began. But when the police arrived, they lathi-charged the students. In front of the police, BJP workers and their supporters continued attacking us. They did nothing.” Another student Ujjwal Roy said that students who were seriously injured were subjected to attacks multiple times. “At around 7 pm, when we were taking eight students to the hospital in an ambulance, they surrounded the ambulance and attacked us again. Their attack was pre-planned.” Roy noted that many of the students at the institute are from outside the state and did not have the option of seeking shelter outside the campus. SRFTI students wrote it on the floor of the institute with their blood after the ABVP rampage. Celebrated film director Pradipta Bhattacharya has taken the picture. pic.twitter.com/ANleXcVrL4 — Aparna (@chhuti_is) September 27, 2026 ‘Organisations affiliated with the BJP and RSS have been holding political meetings every Sunday’ Many current and former students whom The Wire spoke to noted that for this institute, established in 1995 during the Left Front government, there is no precedent of political meetings and violence of this nature. A student who identified herself just by her first name, Brishti, said: “Since June, various organisations affiliated with the BJP and RSS have been holding political meetings every Sunday in the main auditorium. There was no such precedent in the past. All the students are questioning how a political party was allowed to use the premises in this manner.” Brishti explained why the use of the main stage was a problem: “Sunday does not mean a holiday here. Many students use their weekends to work on their practical assignments. So when a group of political workers comes from outside and holds meetings, it disrupts the students’ work.” The students’ union has lodged a complaint with the Panchasayar police station, detailing the incident and demanding appropriate punishment for the leaders and workers who claimed to be of the BJP and RSS and attacked the students. When The Wire contacted the SRFTI registrar Deepak Kumar for his comment on the incident, he disconnected the call. The Wire has also reached out to the Panchasayar police station for comment. A senior police officer that The Wire spoke to said it is now unusual for official comments to come from a source other than the chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari. The Wire could not corroborate this. ‘Those who entered an educational institution and assaulted our students are anti-national’ People from various sections of Bengal have spoken out in protest against the attack. Veteran Bengali filmmaker Kamaleswar Mukherjee told The Wire: “How can people who have nothing to do with television, cinema or any artform be holding programmes at a government film institute? They are beating students and then calling them anti-national? Who are these people? This should be investigated.” Professor Sanjay Mukhopadhyay, a researcher of Bengali cinema, said: “Those who entered an educational institution and assaulted our students are anti-national.