One killed, several injured during students-police clash in West Bengal
Kolkata, Sep 21 (IBNS): A youth was killed and at least nine others, including three cops, were seriously injured during a clash between school students and police force over teacher appointment issues at Islampur in West Bengal's North Dinajpur district on Thursday, reports said.
According to reports, protesting against the appointment of three Urdu language teachers in Islampur's Darivit High School, which does not have any Urdu student, pupils of the co-educational state government aided school had staged a demonstration inside the school campus and tried to prevent the three newly appointed Urdu teachers from entering the high school.
When local police reached the scene, agitating students allegedly attacked policemen and vandalized police vehicles.
Later a heavy police force along with Rapid Action Force (RAF) rushed to the scene and police restored to lathi-charge, fired rubber bullets and lobbed tear gas shells to disperse the protesting students.
During the clash, a youth was found critically injured sustaining gunshot wound.
He was rushed to Islampur Sub-Divisional Hospital nearby where the youth was pronounced dead.
A local police official said that the deceased has been identified as Rajesh Sarkar who was studying a technical course at Islampur ITI college and an ex-student of the Darivit High School.
"The body has been sent for post-mortem and after receiving its report, we can confirm the reason behind the youth's death," a police official told IBNS.
Protesters alleged that police fired several rounds of bullets aiming at agitating students and the youth died after being shot by police's bullet.
Denying the allegation, North Dinajpur district police claimed that no bullet was fire during the incident.
"We restored to lathi-charge, lobbed tear gas shells and only fired few rounds of rubber bullets to disperse the attacking protesters. No bullet was fired during the clash," a senior official of state police told IBNS.
"At least three policemen were seriously injured as the protesters threw bricks and stones aiming at the police force," the official added.
Meanwhile, protesting the incident, CPI-M's students' wing has called for a statewide students' strike on Friday while North Dinajpur district BJP announced to observe a 12-hour shut down in Islampur on the same day.
West Bengal education minister, Partha Chatterjee, said that a probe had been initiated into the matter.
"Local police are investigating the matter and if anyone is found guilty, strict action will be taken against him/her," Partha Chatterjee said.
(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
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