Kolkata football fans unite in demand for justice for RG Kar woman doctor

The Big Three of Kolkata football – Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting have been cultural symbols for what the city stands for. Sharing a cumulative history of well over 300 years, they have provided their legion of fans many a cherished moment of rivalry on the pitch which often spilled over in bitter aftermath.

However, this Sunday was different. The scheduled Kolkata Derby between Bagan and East Bengal in the Durand Cup at the Salt Lake Stadium had been cancelled the day before as the local police forces were apparently being stretched thin in managing the spate of protests in the city over the gruesome rape and murder of the Post Graduate lady doctor of R.G. Kar Medical College on 9 August.

Thousands of fans of both teams, along with Mohammedan Sporting, still landed up at the venue – not hoping to see their favourite team win but demand justice of the victim.

It was an unprecedented show of solidarity from the citizens – predominantly from an young age group – which showed sport in general, and football in particular, can become such a powerful tool of protests.

They may have lost an opportunity to showcase an united face of nearly 60,000 fans staging a protest at the cavernous venue, but the turnout was strong enough to disrupt traffic on the arterial road past the stadium and it’s adjacent roads.

The implementation of Section 163 by the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate (in charge of law-and-order inside the stadium) to thwart any form of public gathering failed to control the swathes of crowd as several of the supporters had to be hauled away in waiting police vans.

Incidentally, Kalyan Choubey, the president of All India Football Federation (AIFF) and a prominent member of the state unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was one of the few political faces present in the protest.

‘’I am surprised that the match could not be conducted in the first place if such a big deployment of police force was possible,’’ Choubey told the assembled media.

Meanwhile, a senior official of the Commissionerate said that they proposed cancellation of the Derby after there were intelligence inputs that attempts would be made to create violence during the match by some miscreants. ‘’We had specific information that some groups and organisations would attempt to create disturbance in the stadium,’’ he added.