A good turn by Students
The procession which been swelling all the time reached Rathkhola peacefully at 12 noon. It was then that a pick-up-load of Traffic Police approached it from the southern direction. The vehicle could not proceed any further because the whole width of the road was covered by the procession. Some of the percussionists pelted it with bricks. But a group of students claimed the car and but a stop to the brick batting.
With Students escorting the car at full speed drove in back gear towards the District Judges Court. There the Students left the car and policemen safe inside the Court premises. By how the precisionists had also reached the Court area. The advance column of the procession crossed the Court Buildings peacefully. It was then that Police rushed out of the Court Compound with lathis and charged the Students-this cut the procession into two.
The processionists also started brick batting the police and the court building. The police made further lathi-charges on the same spot until the whole procession was thrown helter-skelter. Many were injured among them a small boy.
Processionists start retaliating
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The road was littered with stone' and bricks and empty tear-gas shells; it wore the look of a minor battlefield.
Meanwhile, a contingent of the EPR waited at the Victoria Park Camp. A fire brigade van rushed towards the Court House premises. A group of excited processionists heavily pelted it with bricks. The Fire Brigademen, some of them injured, abadoned the Car and took shelter wherever they could find any.
This incident was followed by a fierce lathi-charge and heavy shelling of tear-gas by the police, within minutes the road was empty.
And then came the thing.
It was now 12.45 p.m. when police opened fire by now scattered procession. The firing was preceded by the usual warning. A few rounds were fired. The Govt. Press Note issued letter said that three rounds were fired.
A few demonstrators threw stones at the police picket amid protests from amongst the members of the procession. Police lathi charged all around including on those onlookers on the northern gate of collect orate, so indiscriminate was the lathi-charge at this stage that even minor boys were not spared, neither was a journalist covering the incident. He was hit by a late 011 his hand. At this stage, a Medical College Hospital ambulance rushed back to the spot and took away some persons injured by the lathi charge.
As the dispersed procession reassembled in front of the church and the Mukul Theatre, police tear-gassed them at 12-30 p.m. A few minutes later on armored car of the
