At least 62 people were injured, five of them grievously after the police on Friday lathicharged and fired tear gas shells on a Left Front rally which marched 35 km from Singur towards the State Secretariat at Nabanna in quest of adequate employment opportunities and cheaper education. Five policemen were also injured in the melee when the crowd pelted stones at them, sources said.

Five of the injured protesters undergoing treatment at various hospitals of the city were still in a comatose stage almost five hours of the action, former CPI(M) MP Samik Lahiri said alleging ruling Trinamool Congress goons joined the policemen and threw brickbats and bombs from the buildings surrounding Mullick Fatak area where the incident took place.

Social media posts showed thousands of protesters affiliated to the Students Federation of India and the Democratic Youth Federation of India and other Left Front parties marching towards the Nabanna when they were stopped by the police. “They threw stones at the police forcing them to retaliate,” a Howrah Deputy Commissioner of police said adding five policemen were also injured in the skirmish. The Left Front has called for black days to be observed on Saturday and Sunday.

The Friday’s incident comes close on the heels of a similar march taken out by the BJP at Central Avenue in Kolkata protesting high electricity tariff in Kolkata. The Left workers had started the protest march on Thursday from Singur 35 miles away the site of botched Tata Nano plant where then Opposition leader Mamata Banerjee started an anti-land acquisition movement in 2006 to get catapulted to power in 2011.