The Calcutta High Court has granted temporary relief to a CPM bookstall in Jadavpur after police and a joint Kolkata Municipal Corporation team faced an overnight resistance while attempting to demolish the structure. The confrontation continued from Saturday evening until around 5am on Sunday, according to a report by The Telegraph India.
The operation began when an excavator brought by the police and KMC reached the Jadavpur area to remove the CPM bookstall. CPM supporters forced the excavator to retreat, after which police and central forces personnel arrived in greater numbers. Left supporters, led by CPM leaders Sudip Sengupta and Srijan Bhattacharya, resisted several attempts to dismantle the stall.
The police eventually stepped back after repeated resistance and sloganeering, the report said. A stall belonging to the SUCI and another associated with the rights group APDR were dismantled during the operation. CPM leader Sudip Sengupta alleged that the police had acted without showing a legal order and described the action as part of an anti-Left campaign. The allegation was not independently verified in the report.
The CPM approached the high court on Sunday. The party said the court had agreed to hear the matter on October 20. A senior high court lawyer quoted by The Telegraph India said the case had been listed as a “pending matter”, which, in legal terms, implied that the existing situation would remain unchanged. The report did not reproduce a separate court order directing a specific status quo arrangement.
Following the court development, Srijan Bhattacharya wrote on Facebook that the Jadavpur bookstall would remain and congratulated supporters and book lovers. A CPM leader also said police had informally indicated that there would be no immediate fresh attempt to demolish the stall.
The dispute has extended beyond Jadavpur. The report said several stalls were vandalised in Burdwan, North 24-Parganas and other districts over the previous 24 hours. Five CPM supporters were injured in an alleged attack by BJP supporters on a Left bookstall at Barasat’s Nabapalli Bhadrabari More, according to a Facebook post by CPM leader Palash Das. The account was presented as an allegation and was not independently confirmed in the report.
In Chanchal in Malda district, the CPM alleged that Bajrang Dal activists threatened workers at a bookstall near a Durga Puja pandal, forcing the stall to close. CPM district secretariat member Animesh Sinha said the party had submitted written intimation to the local police station and received a receipt before opening the stall. A Bajrang Dal activist cited in the report said the protest followed an alleged refusal by CPM workers to display images of Goddess Durga.
In Malda town, CPM workers shifted their bookstall near the statue of Syama Prasad Mookerjee after the traditional location was allotted to other organisations. Englishbazar civic body chairman and MLA Amlan Bhaduri said the party had been given a nearby alternative location and that the previous site was not its permanent property. The Jadavpur case is scheduled to come before the high court on October 20.
