However, when Special Branch officer Tapas Chowdhury fell to the bullet of a young man on a crowded road outside the Harimohan Ghosh College Wednesday, things changed.
Television footage showed the killer - later identified as Sheikh Shubhaan - running at a distance, then taking a swift turn, rush a few paces and fire the bullet.
The incident caused widespread shock, and revealed much about the state of law and order in Kolkata.
Hours after the incident, nobody was arrested. There were allegations that one of the culprits involved in the violence was allowed to flee, following the intervention of a Trinamool Congress councillor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, Mohammad Iqbal.
As television aired the shocking footage all day, Pachnanda visited the family of the dead policeman. He rushed to the Garden Reach police station to supervise the handling of the case.
TV footage also showed councillor Iqbal threatening a policeman and mobilising his supporters; however, the councillor was not arrested, even though he was named in the FIR (first information report) filed Thursday.
Urban affairs minister Firhad Hakim gave Iqbal a clean chit.
