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‘Catch the Marxist’: yells Mamata!
Kolkata: The West Bengal Human Rights Commission (WBHRC) on Monday recommended departmental proceedings against two police officers of the Purba Jadavpur police station in connection with the arrest of Ambikesh Mahapatra, a professor at Jadavpur University, and his neighbour Subrata Sengupta. They were arrested in April for circulating e-mail containing cartoons of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and other Trinamool Congress leaders in April.
The Commission, which took suo motu cognisance of the incident and started a probe, has also said the State government must compensate both Prof. Mahapatra and Mr. Sengupta for the manner in which they were arrested from their residences and detained in the police station for a non-cognisable offence.
“Their compensation has been assessed at Rs. 50,000, to be paid to each of them within a period of six weeks from the date,” the Commission said.
WBHRC chairperson Justice (Rtd.) Asok Kumar Ganguly and two other members of the Commission described the incident as a “case of police excess and high handedness, especially when those two persons are otherwise respectable citizens without any criminal record.”
In its recommendation, the WBHRC observed that “citizens who are airing critical opinion about the ruling party cannot be picked up from their residence by the police at the instance of an agitated mob whose members are unhappy with the critical views of those two persons. If this is allowed to continue then not only the human rights of the dissenters will perish, free speech, which is the life blood of democracy, will also be gagged.”
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A West Bengal court on Monday rejected the bail plea of a man, who was arrested after he had publicly questioned chief minister Mamata Banerjee about her government policies towards farmers.
“The court of assistant chief judicial magistrate (Jhargram) Monday rejected Shiladitya Chowdhury’s bail plea. He is now in judicial custody,” his counsel Ashwini Mandal said.
Chowdhury, a marginal farmer, was arrested Saturday from Jhargram in West Midnapore district for “disrupting a public rally and assaulting police officers”. He was later remanded to 14 days’ judicial custody. He has been charged under several non-bailable sections of the Indian Penal Code, one of which carries an imprisonment term of 10 years. While Banerjee was addressing a public rally July 8 in Belpahari a Maoist stronghold about 170km from Kolkata, Chowdhury stood up and asked her: “Farmers are dying because they have no money. Empty promises are not enough. What are you doing for farmers?”
Stunned by the question, an angry Banerjee immediately branded him a “Maoist” following which Chowdhury was detained and taken for interrogation by the police.
“I have information Maoists have sent agents to create disturbance at this meeting. Catch him. Do not let him create trouble,” Banerjee had said.
Chowdhury was, however, allowed to go that day but was arrested Saturday morning.