Babul Supriyo undergoes MRI in Los Angeles; attributes severe headache to JU assault

Union minister Babul Supriyo has undergone an MRI at a hospital in Los Angeles and is consulting a neurologist following severe headache that he attributed to the assault by a group of agitating students in the Jadavpur University (JU) campus on September 19.

“As it is right now: I am at the University of Irvine, Los Angeles, California hospital going through a number of tests. Just had an MRI - Now at the neurologist who would evaluate the findings,” wrote the minister on his social media post on Thursday.

“Reason: Sharp pain happening behind my left eyeballs, about 2 inches inside my skull from over the left ear which is causing strong headaches everyday. It’s from the injury that was inflicted on me by the so called ‘Students’ of Modern Bengal with stone pelting, hitting with thick sticks attached to the Black flags they were showing me, Hard punches thrown at me by young guys who called themselves Naxals & SFI members,” Supriyo added.

However, the minister also wrote that it “really doesn’t matter what the outcome is, since it’s surely not a life-threatening situation.”

The minister, who was a playback singer in Bollywood, had visited the US for a performance and a felicitation by local Indians.

“He was suffering even during performance,” wrote Dipankar Das, a resident of the US, in response to the minister’s post.

Incidentally, after the JU incident that witnessed the unprecedented step of governor Jagdeep Dhankhar rushing to the university to rescue the minister after he was detained by the agitating students, the minister did not lodge any police complaint.

On Thursday, too, Supriyo wrote that there was need to think “how hooligans from outside get to enter JU & bring disrepute to the institution. We need to think hard - not for politics but for the sake of education.”

The JU incident had triggered allegations and counter-allegations between the Raj Bhavan and Partha Chatterjee, the secretary general of ruling Trinamool Congress.

The governor alleged that during the five odd hours when Supriyo was detained in the campus, the administration virtually became inert and he went to the campus as a chancellor to normalise the situation when informing almost every senior functionary, including chief minister Mamata Banerjee (who was away in Delhi) failed.

The ruling party alleged that Dhakhar had become over active and displayed partisan behaviour. He should have waited for some time for the administration to take steps to defuse the situation.