Mamata Banerjee, who is known to be unsparing towards dissenting opinions, once again gets a 28-year-old youth arrested for allegedly posting a derogatory remark against her on social media on Tuesday night. Chandan Bhattacharya was arrested on the basis of a complaint lodged by Trinamool Youth Congress district president Shantanu Banerjee.
“We arrested Chandan Bhattacharya after a complaint was filed against him with Singur police station. A probe has been initiated in the case,” Superintendent of Police Tathagata Basu said.
According to the complainant, Chandan Bhattacharya, a resident of Singur in Hooghly district, had posted the “derogatory comment” on Facebook on the day of Kali puja.
“Chandan Bhattacharya had posted the comment on October 28. Party workers could not trace his residence that day. However, the next day, they found out that he lives in Singur. Following this, I lodged a police complaint against him,” he said.
The incident came days after Congress leader Sanmoy Bandopadhyay was arrested from North 24 Parganas district for allegedly violating the Cyber Crime Act. Leader of the Congress party in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had then accused the police of arresting Bandopadhyay for circulating posts critical of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government. “Bandopadhyay’s arrest is a classic example of the intolerance of the highest order”, Chowdhury had said.
West Bengal chief minister and TMC head Mamata Banerjee has several times in the past expressed her intolerance and disapproval for conflicting opinions.
Priyanka Sharma, BJP youth leader had been arrested for posting a meme mocking Banerjee on her Facebook Timeline on May 9. The MET Gala 2019 themed meme superimposed Mamata’s face on Priyanka Chopra’s body. She was arrested and produced in Howrah Court.
On March 27, Tina Biswas, an author of novel critical of WB CM Mamata Banerjee had alleged harassment during her book launch at Kolkata.
Recently, a Bengali movie, Bhobishyoter Bhoot (Ghost of the Future), directed by Anik Dutta, which took a dig at Mamata Banerjee’s style of functioning, was pulled off theatres. It was only after a public outcry that theatres in Kolkata have started screening the film again.
Similarly, a revising committee of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) had refused to clear movie named Kangal Malsat for screening, after claiming it “insulted” Mamata Banerjee. Likewise, Teen Kanya’s screening was stopped by Mamata since it resembled the Park Street rape case of 2012.
Last year a man hailing from Tripura’s Dhalai district was arrested for allegedly making derogatory remarks against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a social media post.
As per reports, one Arunachal Dutta Choudhary, an employee of West Bengal Health Service was suspended over a Facebook post, which described the adverse condition in his hospital which has been facing a wave of dengue patients in the year 2017 as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee holds the health portfolio in the state government.
Mamata had also banned books by 1981 batch IPS officer Nazrul Islam which were critical of Mamata government not delivering what was promised.
The list of bans is long but perhaps the most absurd was the incident where Mamata’s police arrested a businessman for ranting about traffic conditions on Facebook and not apologizing about it.
