PTI, Kolkata, July 9, 2025 : Reports of violence were received from various pockets of West Bengal after Left-wing activists, supporting the countrywide general strike, clashed with police and TMC supporters in multiple districts, even as additional security forces were deployed to ensure normal life.
Reinforcing its stand of zero-tolerance towards bandhs, the West Bengal Police came down heavily on strike supporters, forcefully removing them from spaces where they attempted disruption of public life. Despite those measures, strike sponsors blocked roads and railway tracks in various parts of the state and tried to force a shutdown of shops and establishments in some pockets in their efforts to enforce the strike which evoked partial response in the state.
Banking services, in both public and private sectors, were largely affected across Bengal. DYFI and CPIM workers scuffled with police in Ganguly Bagan area in south Kolkata as they tried to block the thoroughfare, holding rush hour traffic to ransom, and threatened shopkeepers to down shutters. The protestors also burnt effigies and set alight tyres posing risk of a roadside fire, which the police quickly doused.
Police detained some strike supporters, including SFI leader Srijan Bhattacharya, who alleged that police used force to remove them when they were holding peaceful protests. “The Mamata Banerjee police has sold itself to the TMC which, in turn, has sold its soul to the BJP. This strike was called against BJP’s policies and look how the TMC government launched its crackdown on us. They won’t even allow us to hold a peaceful rally in support of the strike,” Bhattacharya alleged.
At the College Street crossing in the northern part of the city, SFI supporters clashed with police after the men in uniform tried to remove a roadblock and detain some protestors. The scuffle turned nasty during attempts made by the bandh supporters to forcefully snatch the detainees from prison vans and escort them out of police grips.
At Domjur in the adjacent city of Howrah, police and RAF opened a lathi charge on bandh supporters who tried to stop buses and trucks from plying on roads. On Hill Cart Road in the north Bengal town of Siliguri, police removed supporters of the strike when they tried to resort to blockades. In a scuffle that ensued, TV cameras caught a bandh supporter removing the cap of a police officer with a blow.
Cameras also caught the IC of the Banshihari police station in the Buniadpur area of Dakshin Dinajpur district slapping a local CPIM leader, Majidur Rahaman, during a verbal spat.
CITU workers clashed and were subsequently chased by their INTTUC counterparts of the Trinamool Congress trade union wing in the Tufangunj town of Cooch Behar, leading to tension in the area.
In Birbhum’s Kirnahar, Left and TMC workers clashed, allegedly in front of police, when the former group took out a rally in support of the strike. Three CPI-M supporters were reportedly injured and admitted to a local hospital.
