Kolkata rape case: Did TMC turn a blind eye to key accused Monojit Mishra’s past?

Trigger Warning: Details of sexual assault, reader’s discretion advised.

After the alleged rape of a student in Kolkata’s South Calcutta Law College came to light, leaders of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) have tried to distance themselves from Monojit Mishra, the key accused in the case. The party had come under fire after social media posts hinted at Mishra’s connections with TMC’s top brass.

On June 25, Mishra (31), allegedly raped a 24-year-old student, in the security guard’s room in the college premises in the presence of two students, Zaib Ahmed (19) and Pramit Mukherjee (20). Alt News has accessed the First Information Report (FIR) filed at the Kasba police station on June 26. The three have been charged under sections 127 (2), which deals with wrongful confinement; 70(1), gang rape; and 3 (5), dealing with joint criminal liability, of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita.

In her statement to the police, the survivor said that the key accused was an ex-student, a college official and “unofficially” the head of the college’s TMC-affiliated student wing–Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCP). She said that he was “giving everyone a post for TMCP unit” and she was given the post of the Girls’ Secretary and asked about her ‘loyalty’ to Mishra and the TMCP unit before she was raped. She also alleged that Mishra and the others recorded videos of the incident and threatened to leak them if she refused to ‘co-operate’. She wrote that she had a panic attack when the ordeal was ongoing and was given an inhaler, but they did not let her go. Mishra also tried to hit her with a hockey stick. The two other students accused in the case had locked the main campus gate while the guard stood there helpless, she wrote.

Alt News’ findings reveal that Mishra is a history sheeter, who, despite his troubling record of violence and harassment, was given an official position with the party’s student wing (Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad). Even when he was not an office bearer, Mishra allegedly flexed his power on campus with repeated acts of vandalism and harassment.

‘Failed to Predict in 2019 that Mishra would Commit such a Crime’

From ruling out the accused’s association with the party entirely to claiming that they could not have possibly foretold what happened, TMC leaders have made public statements and held press conferences to keep the prime accused at arm’s length. However, Alt News found that Mishra was assigned leadership positions in the party’s student wing despite several police complaints in his name before the latest case, including for allegedly molesting a woman.

On June 27, after the FIR in the case was filed, senior TMC leaders Kunal Ghosh and Shashi Panja, along with TMCP state president Trinankur Bhattacharya, held a press conference where they repeatedly insisted that the TMC and its student wing, the TMCP, were being made scapegoats.

“Various quarters are softly targeting the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad. Why? …I have never claimed that the accused was not part of the TMCP… Whether or not he is involved with the Trinamool or its student wing should never be the basis for judgment,” he said. Bhattacharya, a TMCP president for six years, sarcastically remarked that party members were no experts in astrology and thus “failed to predict in 2019 that Mishra would commit such an act” six years later. Bhattacharya also emphasised that since 2022, Mishra had no official TMCP position.

But despite having no position, Monojit Mishra seems to have wielded more power on campus than the party leaders let on. Going by the survivor’s statement, he was appointing people in TMCP positions at the college level. “Unofficially, he is the TMCP head of the college and holds much power in the college. Everyone listens to him. He was giving everyone a post for TMCP unit,” her statement reads.

Meanwhile, The Hindu quoted Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim as saying that Mishra was in no way associated with the TMC. “They might be supporters, but they had no relation to the TMC. Anyone who does support TMC based on ideals can never commit such crimes.”

However, Mishra was not just a supporter. Graffiti bearing his name and initials, along with TMCP slogans, was prominently on display in South Calcutta Law College alongside posters of Abhishek Banerjee, which were later taken down.

Mishra was also named an ‘organising secretary’ of TMCP’s South Kolkata district committee in 2021. Active in several districts in West Bengal, the TMCP has around 100 district committees, according to TMCP state president Bhattacharya. Mishra was part of one such district committee, but not after 2022.

So, it’s unclear whether Hakim was suggesting that TMC and its student wing (TMCP) had no association with each other.

Two senior TMCP leaders confirmed to Alt News that the district committee list in 2021 did include Monojit Mishra’s name, but was reconstituted in 2022 and Mishra’s name was dropped. Alt News also accessed a 2022 document with names of the members of the south Kolkata district TMCP committee, where Mishra’s name no longer appeared. When asked about the reason for his removal, one of these leaders said that similar allegations of sexual misconduct had surfaced against him at the time. In response to a question about how often district committees are reshuffled, we were told that changes are made according to “party needs.”

Why TMC Leaders’ Claims are Misleading

During its investigation, Alt News found that even before he was named an organising secretary of a TMCP district committee in 2021, Mishra had several allegations of misconduct levelled against him and was named in FIRs and police chargesheets. As the timeline below will show, he had a troubling history of violence and assault before he was given a position with TMCP in 2021 and later, in 2024, employed as temporary staff at the college by the institute’s governing body that was headed by a TMC leader.

2012-2025

• 2012: Monojit Mishra joined South Calcutta Law College as a student.
• 2013: He was expelled, reportedly for stabbing a youth. A case is filed at the Kalighat police station. SCLC ex-student, Titas Manna, told India Today that in 2013, an attempt to murder case had been filed against Mishra for “stabbing a catering worker and cutting off their finger”.
• 2016: Mishra returned to campus. He led a mob of outsiders to the campus and vandalised college property.

• 2017: He is re-admitted to South Calcutta Law College. The same year, in November, he allegedly ransacked the campus while holding demonstrations against the college’s then-principal. According to an ABP Ananda report from the time, Mishra and a mob with him allegedly destroyed the principal’s nameplate, windows and CCTV cameras. At the time, Mishra had told the press that the reason for the demonstration was the high fees at SCLC. Mishra was reportedly barred from the campus for a while after this incident.

In December 2017, Mishra, along with a group of 30-40 boys, allegedly beat up students of the college, including women. An ex-student, Titas Manna, told news outlets ABP Ananda and India Today that Mishra attacked student union members after he was barred from joining. According to The Telegraph’s report, citing a senior police official at the Lalbazar Police Station, Mishra was arrested twice in 2017–once by the Kalighat police in April and then in August. The charges included causing grievous hurt, wrongful confinement and mischief. Alt News was unable to get a statement from the Kolkata police independently on these arrests. The story will be updated if and when we have more details.

• 2019: In a Facebook post from July of that year, TMCP’s South Calcutta Law College unit denounced links to Mishra. Calling him “an antisocial,” the unit said that he provoked and threatened students to support “his antisocial works… inside and outside the college premises”. The post also said he did this by misusing the name of TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee.

“He was not a member of the unit; whatever he has told to the students (of) this college it was vague and defamtory to the Unit. So the students are requested not get indulged in any such provocation or activities by Monojit Mishra…[sic]” the post read.

The page also shared copies of two FIRs filed against him in July at the Gariahat and Tollygunge police stations.

The FIR filed at the Gariahat police station includes section 354 of the Indian Penal Code (assault or criminal force to a woman with intent to outrage her modesty). Note that the contents of the FIR are illegible, but we could figure out the phrase “outrage her modesty”. Other IPC sections invoked include 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint) and 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt). He was also charged under these sections in the FIR filed at the Tollygunge police station.

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From this Facebook page, we also found an ABP Ananda report from July 23, 2019, showing SCLC students protesting against Monojit Mishra for allegedly harassing female students. In the video, a student demonstrator says, “Monojit Mishra took admission in the college in 2012. At the time, he was rusticated for indecent activities on campus. In 2016, he vandalised the college with the help of outsiders. After that, he re-entered the college illegally. He repeatedly harassed female students to keep them on his team and would make those videos go viral. If any girl were seen outside the college, he would physically assault her there. If any male student went out to celebrate a birthday or attend a family event, he would try to heckle them, too. We have one clear demand–Monojit Mishra must be rusticated. If he is not, then all students should be transferred from SCLC to another college.”

The channel re-aired this clip on July 1, 2025, identifying the speaker in the video as then-TMCP student leader Sufal Kundu. It is worth noting that even in the recent incident, the survivor alleged that Mishra filmed the ordeal and threatened to leak the video.

• 2021: Despite these charges and a troubling history with college authorities, Mishra is named an organising secretary of Trinamool Chhatra Parishad’s south Kolkata district committee in an official document dated February 2021 (added earlier in the story). Thereafter, Mishra is seen participating in programmes by the West Bengal Trinamool Chhatra Parishad as well as going door-to-door distributing pamphlets for the TMC.

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• 2022: As mentioned earlier, the district committee of the south Kolkata TMCP was “reconstituted” in February 2022. Mishra was no longer part of this. According to his LinkedIn profile, he also graduated from college in 2022. According to a Telegraph report, citing sources, he was named in a chargesheet filed by the Kasba police in March 2022 for allegedly molesting a woman.
• 2023: In 2023, during a student picnic at Budge Budge, Mishra allegedly groped and bit a second-year student. The student’s account was reported in The Times of India. “He pinned me down and held my hands so tightly that I was not in a position to move. He took that chance and tore my innerwear’s strap,” she said. According to the report, when she decided to lodge a formal complaint, “Monojit’s gang” threatened to throw acid on her and “finish off” her family. The student said she left the city for a month-and-a-half.
  
  
• 2024: On August 30, 2024, Mishra was appointed by the governing body as “temporary office staff” at the South Calcutta Law College. It is worth noting that the governing body is led by TMC MLA from Budge Budge, Ashok Kumar Deb, with whom Mishra has uploaded several images and videos, referring to him as ‘Jethu’ or uncle.

• 2025: On July 1, 2025, after the rape allegations surfaced, the college’s governing body terminated him from his position, which means that the alleged incident took place when Mishra was serving as “office staff” on campus.

Political ‘Linkages’

While the party and its student wing have sought to distance themselves from Monojit Mishra, his Facebook profile paints a different picture. On several occasions, he has shared images with TMC bigwigs, including Abhishek Banerjee and mayor Firhad Hakim.

In 2024 (when he had no official position with the college or the TMCP) he was seen with TMCP South Kolkata district president Sarthak Banerjee at a blood donation camp in the college. The same year, he was also seen speaking at preparation day meetings ahead of the TMCP’s foundation day and photographed sharing the stage with senior TMC and TMCP leaders, including MLA Debashish Kumar and Sarthak Banerjee. As recently as April this year, he was felicitating Banerjee at a blood donation camp in the institute.

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His Facebook timeline is also replete with tributes to Trinamool Congress, the student wing and the party’s leaders. Photographs also indicate that he was very involved in college activities and a devoted worker.

After the latest rape allegations surfaced against him, multiple students have claimed that they too were harassed, assaulted, or threatened by Mishra, and silenced by fear. These accounts, combined with the rape survivor’s statement, the above instances—including the graffiti in college bearing his name—make it clear that he not only had a troubling record but was appointed to TMCP and the college despite these allegations. It seems as though he was not just accommodated in the shadows, but in full public view, giving the impression that he had tacit support.

Mishra’s troubled record also raises important systemic questions about student leaders associated with TMC wielding authority in campus to this extent when they are no longer students at the institute or in leadership positions. Also, little is known about what happened to the FIRs against him, some of which had named him for non-bailable offences.