Bedrooms, Condoms, and a Firearm: Tale of a Calcutta College

The literati in the City of Joy and the rag tag onlookers close to College Street, hub of book lovers in this part of Asia, must have suffered a mild heart attack of sorts on Tuesday.

The students’ union room of a famous college in the neighbourhood which was reported to be run by the youth wing of the now ousted Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee till the other day, used to house condoms, firearm and bags of termite-eaten currency notes.

The union room apart, skeletons began tumbling out of the cupboard when cops broke into the two cosy air-conditioned rooms on the terrace of the college building and stumbled upon the ‘essentials’ of the union leaders.

The couple of costly beds and associated ‘assortments’ in the rooms where the leaders were believed to be ‘enjoying themselves’ in the company of girls, had the cops gaping in shock.  

Yes, you have heard it right; the prestigious Surendranath College (Ripon College during pre-Independence era) named after Sir Surendranath Banerjee where Swami Vivekananda had addressed students and professors after his illustrious speech at the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, has fallen to this ill repute.

This is the same college the corridors of which had once been graced by such illustrious stalwarts as Bibhuti Bhushan Banerjee, Sir Nirod C Choudhury and Sunil Gangopadhya among others as students.

The shocking discovery, perhaps for the first time from a prestigious college in West Bengal, nay India, is more than a coincidence.

BJP Legislator’s Letter to CM

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Sajal Ghosh had earlier written to Chief Minister Shubhendu Adhikari last week, alleging that the Surendranath College student union had embezzled crores of rupees in the last ten years or so and demanded a formal investigation into the matter.

Ghosh alleged on Tuesday (2/6/26) that Trinamool Congress student leaders had engaged in corruption worth crores of rupees by accepting bribes from students in exchange of college admissions.

The lid was thrown open first when two bags full of termite-eaten currency notes were discovered in a cupboard inside the Union Room, with total value of the cash running into several lakhs of rupees.

Cops were called in for further search. Before the dust could settle on the recovery of bagful of cash, even more sensational revelations began tumbling out.

Cops Jaws Dropped

 Police reached the terrace of the building and their jaws dropped. Two decorated airconditioned rooms with costly beds, a packet of condoms, expensive mattresses, and other furnishings besides a firearm.

There were further allegations that "massage" services used to be provided to the TMC union leaders in these very rooms which sported photographs of local Trinamool leaders besides former TMC Lok Sabha chief whip Sudip Banerjee.

Pillows were also found inside the wardrobes. Additionally, multiple liquor bottles were reportedly recovered from the college rooftop.

How could the college management collude with the erstwhile ruling political party to resort to such base acts as these? Political pressure? Or a section of the management was also a party to this?

FIR Against TMC Leaders

Repeated efforts to reach the college management evoked little response even as police have lodged FIRs against two TMC leaders for tarnishing and debasing the dignity and image of this reputed city college.

The shocking discovery has sparked intense heat and serious questions about the sanctity of a premier institution like Surendranath College.

Ghosh also sarcastically referred to the rooms as "OYO rooms" — a reference to budget hotel accommodations — and demanded an Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigation into the source of the cash recovered from the union room.

Citing data from the union's bank passbook, Ghosh alleged, "The cultural event fund of the student union has a balance of one and a half crore rupees. Typically, only ₹50–₹100 is collected from each student for the student union. Such a collection can never amount to one and a half crore rupees in a year."

Increasing demands for unravelling the mystery surrounding the money and ‘Terrace Comfort’ have been growing from a section of the city intelligentsia too as revelations have triggered a widespread controversy over the state of education during the tenure of Mamata Banerjee-led government.

Really, what man has made of Man!