Visva Bharati impasse: Senior cops speak to ashramities

Kolkata: The senior police officers of Birbhum visited the houses of the ashramities of Visva Bharati and sought their opinion about setting

up a boundary wall around

the Pous Mela ground and other constructions that have come up at the varsity over the years.

Shyam Singh, superintendent of police, additional superintendent of police, sub divisional police officer along with officers from Bolpur police station came to the area on cycles and visited house of the ashramites.

Local people had raised objection with the Visva Bharati university authorities began to construct walls around the Pous Mela ground on August 16.

Meanwhile, Bidhyut Chakrabort in a press issued on Saturday categorically stated that he would carry on with his project of putting up walls. He maintained that the Pous Mela ground has no heritage as it started housing the fair in 1961, twenty years after Tagore's

death.

He said criminal activities are being carried out on the ground. However, he has never made any complaint to the police regarding the matter.

Chakraborty's statement that "Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore was an outsider" has earned criticism from the teachers of Visva Bharati.

The teachers said Rabindranath had first come to Santiniteken in 1873 when he was 12-years-old. Santiniketan Griha was set up by Maharshi Debendranath in 1863, when tagore was two-years-old. Santiniketan Trust was made in 1888 and Upasana Mandir came up in 1898. "Rabindranath was never an outsider, he was an integral part of the area," the teachers remarked.

The teachers felt that the reason behind the decision to keep the university closed for an indefinite period is "to harass the teachers who do to support V-C's actions." They apprehend that the salaries of the teachers and non-teaching staffs for August will be delayed due to the closure.

Though the salaries are paid on the last day of every month, the teachers and non teaching staff received their salaries for the month of June on

July 15 and July on August 5 due to lockdown. However,

in no other central university the salaries were delayed by a day.