Street fight against the 'street fighter'

Kolkata, a veritable minefield since protests erupted over the recent rape and murder of a doctor, turned into a warzone on Tuesday after protesters and police clashed as the former tried to make their way through barricades to march towards the West Bengal secretariat 'Nabanna'.

- Aritra Singha

Scuffles broke out at How rah Bridge and other areas and the police had to resort to lathi charge and use water cannons to disperse the milling crowd, many of them senior citizens.

Braving the gushing water jets, the protestors dismantled the barricades as they surged towards the secretariat.

As the administration came down with a sledgehammer, protesters questioned where the police were hiding when a rampage took place at the RG Kar hospital premises in the wee hours of August 15.

The irony of it - that the men in khaki had come out of their hibernation just because the protests were targeted at chief minister Mamata Banerjee was not lost on anyone.