India, Sept. 1 -- The Indian Army and Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress have locked horns, with the party accusing the Centre of using the force to silence its voice after the Army dismantled a protest stage near Mahatma Gandhi's statue in Kolkata's Maidan on Monday. The stage had been erected to protest the alleged harassment of Bengali migrants.

The Maidan area comes under the authority of the Army, and the Eastern Command headquarters are at Fort William nearby.

"Permission for events greater than 3 days needs to be obtained from the Ministry of Defence, Government of India. Permission for conduct of events was provided for two days. However, the stage has been put up of almost a month, several reminders have been sent to the orga...