More than two months after the Supreme Court did away with the obnoxious Section 66A of the IT Act, a Jadavpur University professor, who was arrested for sharing a Mamata Banerjee cartoon strip on email, continues to be at the receiving end of the state government and police’s ire.
Exploits of a Police State
For Ambikesh Mahapatra, a professor of Chemistry, March 23, 2012, was a day that changed his life forever. He had forwarded an innocuous, but funny cartoon lampooning West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and the then state Railways Minister Mukul Roy to a few members of his housing cooperative society in South Kolkata.
The cartoon strip has lines from Satyajit Ray’s famous and endearing detective movie, Sonar Kella (The Golden Fortress), in which a little boy called Mukul is duped by two criminals into believing that one of the two caused a “dushtu lok (naughty man), who is actually a good person, to “vanish”. In the spoof, the “dushtu lok” who vanishes is Dinesh Triverdi, a man who was unceremoniously forced out of office by Banerjee in March 2012.
On the night of April 12, 2012, Mahapatra, who was then assistant secretary of the housing co-operative, and 72-year-old Subrata Sengupta, who was the secretary and from whose account the email was forwarded, were assaulted by hooligans, arrested by the police and taken to the East Jadavpur police station, where they spent a night in the lock-up. The next day, both Mahapatra and Sengupta, a retired PWD engineer, were produced before the Alipore Police Court. They were granted bail.
A 96-page chargesheet was submitted and a case was registered under Section 66A.
What the Nation Thinks, Bengal Doesn’t Care About
Meanwhile, the West Bengal Human Rights’ Commission headed by retired Supreme Court judge Ashok Kumar Ganguly carried out an independent investigation. The commission’s report mentioned police high-handedness and a violation of human rights, democratic rights and freedom of speech. The state government rejected Ganguly’s report and recommendations. Mahapatra submitted a petition before the Calcutta High Court in November 2013.
The High Court delivered its judgement on March 10, this year, directing the state to implement the commission’s recommendations within a month. “The state government has challenged the order of the Division Bench. The idea is to prolong our agony by harassing us,” says Mahapatra.
This March witnessed a landmark Supreme Court judgement which scrapped Section 66A. Yet nothing has changed in Bengal. On April 27, Mahapatra’s case came up at the Alipore Court, with the hearing deferred to June 12.
“The case was not withdrawn. The state government did not welcome this turn of events. In public meetings, Mamata Bannerjee has supported the police action and our arrest. Sadly, our Chief Minister is egoistic and vindictive,” says Mahapatra.
Justice Delayed is Justice Denied
Three months before the historic Supreme Court judgement, Mahapatra found that a fresh criminal case was filed against him in the Bankshall Court. “This was a trumped-up charge. It said I had assaulted the police physically. In the chargesheet they had said I was absconding,” adds Mahapatra.
Why did the police wait from March 2012 till December 2014 to claim that they had been assaulted? Mahapatra submitted a memorandum to President Pranab Mukherjee listing 24 cases in which individuals continue to be harassed in West Bengal.
The President forwarded the memorandum to the Home Ministry which in turn has written thrice to the Bengal Chief Secretary, urging the state to take action. The state has so far not responded.
For Mahapatra it has been a tough journey. A 25-year-long academic career and an unblemished record are pitted against the intolerance and might of the ruling party. But with the support of others who have suffered a similar fate, Mahapatra has set up a forum called Aakraanta Aamaraa (We the Victims).
His quest for justice continues.
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