Assam activists vandalise Vishal Mega Mart stores

Hundreds of activists of the All Assam Students Union (AASU) on Thursday vandalised at least three Vishal Mega Mart shopping malls in Assam.

About a dozen students were injured when the police used batons to disperse them. AASU accused the shopping chain of defaming it, two days after a newly floated students' forum released telephonic conversations between a Vishal Mart executive and an AASU leader regarding monetary transactions.

Malls in Guwahati, Jorhat and Dibrugarh were attacked, a police officer said. "In all the three places, about 100 AASU activists sneaked past security barricades and started pelting stones.

They then entered the premises and resorted to large scale vandalism," he said. At a press conference on Tuesday, the Forum of Ex-General Secretary Post Graduate Students Union of Guwahati University released an audio tape where AASU adviser Samujjal Bhattacharya was heard talking about receiving Rs. 2 lakh from an official of Vishal Mega Mart shopping chain.

AASU admitted to accepting donations from business houses, and said it was not doing "anything wrong". AASU also forcibly closed down six Vishal Mega Mart malls on Wednesday — in Guwahati, Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Tezpur, and Silchar — and asked the management to tender a public apology before opening the outlets.

"There was no request from Vishal Mega Mart management for providing security. We were caught unawares by AASU activists," the police officer added.

AASU has warned of more attacks if Vishal Mega Mart did not apologise. AASU commands the support of an estimated five lakh students in the state. It spearheaded a violent six-year anti-outsider agitation in 1979. It is active in raising issues of Bangladeshi migrants, mega dam projects, and corruption.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/44240" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-7e2b8db84afa1439ff59fe8599199bc8" value="form-7e2b8db84afa1439ff59fe8599199bc8" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85871370" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.