Debjani Dey of Bhangar Mahavidyalay said she was "terrified" at the thought of returning to the college in South
24-Parganas, about 35km from Calcutta.
"He was hurling abuses at us (teachers) and then he slammed a jug kept on the table. It flew at me and I started bleeding. I don't know how I will return to the college. I feel terrified," geography teacher Dey said today. Arabul Islam, former Trinamul Congress MLA and president of the governing body of Bhangar Mahavidyalay, denied assaulting the teacher but said she had "wagged her finger at me"."It is my college…. I am the president (of the governing body) and this college teacher was raising her voice and wagging her finger at me. Just imagine," Arabul said standing on the college premises. "Let her remove the plaster and the truth will be out. It is all a sajano (fabricated) story," he added.
Why was he in the college again today? Was there a meeting? "No meeting. I was there because I keep going there," the former MLA said.
The leader whose name had hit the headlines a few years ago during the Vedic Village controversy had been nominated president of the pro-Trinamul governing body of the college three months ago as an "eminent local personality".
"If the people want me to be the college president, I will be the college president," said Arabul, whose affidavit for the 2011 Assembly elections says he is "10th Pass" and has assets worth over Rs 91 lakh. He lost the elections despite the Mamata wave but many feel rivals within had ensured his defeat.
The fresh controversy has broken less than a fortnight after Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra was assaulted and arrested in the name of circulating an Internet joke.
At the root of the college quarrel is a system devised by the Left ' and now pursued with vigour by Trinamul ' to pack governing bodies with sympathisers.
Popularly known as GB, a governing body consists of two university nominees, two nominees of the higher education department, the local civic councillor or the panchayat pradhan, the chief of the college students' union, two (elected) non-teaching employees of the college and four (elected) teachers.
Alimuddin Street used to clear the names. The local Trinamul leadership does it now.
The teachers of the Bhangar college had assembled in the staff room yesterday to select five representatives for the general council of the West Bengal College and University Teachers' Union. Arabul wanted a slot for a teacher of his choice.
Some teachers quoted Arabul as telling them: "You are CPM agents. I will hold you by the neck and throw you out of the college."
On STAR Ananda tonight, Subrata Goswami, a commerce teacher, said: "The president of my college governing body told me I will be stripped and paraded on the road outside for being a CPM agent." Political science teacher Malika Sen quoted Arabul as saying: "Bring that fair one out."
Another teacher said: "He had no business interfering with the election. But he did. We sought some time to decide and he left the room. Several teachers raised objections to his demand and that voice of dissent somehow reached him outside. He stormed into the staff room and started asking for Debjani Dey."
Dey said today the teachers were still deliberating the demand but somehow Arabul must have got an impression that the teachers were resisting his move.
"He was accompanied by several outsiders and all of them were using filthy language. They were banging on the table and saying 'how dare you object to the choice of our leaders…. You are all CPM agents and will be thrown out of the college'," said Goswami. "We don't know how we will continue teaching in the college."
Arabul said he was merely questioning the teachers about their performance in class when they got angry. "As I started questioning the teachers about the fall in the standard of teaching in the college and lack of teachers' attendance, that lady (Dey) started misbehaving with me," he said.
Arabul was the Bhangar MLA during the Vedic Village flare-up in 2009, which brought into focus how some politicians and realtors had got together to grab land.
After an arrest warrant was issued against Arabul's brother Khude, Trinamul removed him from the post of Bhangar II block committee chief. But Arabul contested the 2011 polls on a party ticket.
Arabul may not be the MLA any more but he still calls the shots in an area where the party controls every other body. Bhangar is part of the Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency, represented by Trinamul's Kabir Suman. The party controls the gram panchayat, panchayat samiti and the zilla parishad.
Arabul's son Habibul is the president of the ruling Trinamul students' union in the college.
At the meeting with Calcutta University pro-vice-chancellor (academics) Dhrubajyoti Chatterjee, at least 10 colleagues accompanied Dey. "We will inform governor M.K. Narayanan, the chancellor of the university, of the attack on the teacher. The university will ask the district magistrate and the superintendent of police to take steps to ensure her safety," said Chatterjee.
Dey, who received a stitch on her chin, had not filed a police complaint till this evening. "No doubt, I'm very scared but no one can dislodge me from my workplace," Dey said.
Poet Shankha Ghosh felt people were getting frightened. "There is a tendency to dub any incident a conspiracy to malign the government and, doing so, the government is losing focus of the real issue. People are getting frightened by what is happening all around."
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