Kolkata, Oct 7 (PTI) Officiating Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University Shanta Dutta on Monday said that those who taking part in the Durga Puja festivities should also visit the junior doctors who are on fast-unto-death demanding justice for the rape and murder of a medic of the RG Kar hospital and workplace safety.

Six junior doctors have been on indefinite hunger strike since Saturday evening while one more joined them the next day.

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It is up to an individual whether the person would participate in festivities or not, the vice-chancellor told reporters after the commemoration function of 75 years of the Journalism and Mass Communication department of the university.

“But offering puja and taking part in festivities are not the same. In this milieu, any call to people to take part in festivities looks like thrusting it on them. It is insensitive considering these youngsters are fasting out in the open sacrificing their personal comfort and risking their health. Shouldn't we spare some thoughts for them?” she said.

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Dutta was alluding to earlier comments of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urging people “to join the Durga Puja festival as more than a month has elapsed” after August 9 when the body of the doctor was found in the seminar room of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

Responding to the vice-chancellor's comments, senior Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh said, “She has been thrust on the university by Governor C V Ananda Bose disregarding the opinion of state higher education department.”

Various activities of Dutta have earned the wrath of the ruling dispensation.

Ghosh said lakhs of small-time businessmen and people associated with the festival sustain themselves for the entire year with the income generated during puja days.

“People like Dutta will never be able to comprehend this fact,” said Ghosh, who himself is an organiser of a Durga puja in Kolkata.

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