Three social media content creators from West Bengal — Akash Sarkar, Surajit Shee and Srimoyee Chakraborty — were recently arrested after making posts which questioned the ruling BJP government and its policies.
While Sarkar was granted bail on October 29 after spending three days in police custody, Chatterjee was released from detention on a personal bond on October 26. Shee was first sent to judicial custody and held at Medinipur Central Jail. At present, he is in police custody till November 6.
An FIR was lodged against Shee under Sections 152, 197 and 353 of the BNS, pertaining to acts endangering integrity of India, assertions threatening national integration, and statements amounting to public mischief, respectively.
In the FIR registered against Sarkar, the police invoked Sections 356(1), 353(1)(2) and 299(1) of the BNS, pertaining to criminal defamation, spreading false information/hate speech, and intentionally outraging religious feelings, respectively.
Surajit Shee: Posts on Durga Puja Stampede
Surajit Shee, hailing from Dantan village of West Midnapore district, runs a Facebook page called ‘Core Bangla-Janakantha’, which has over 2,52,000 followers. Shee shares posts on a range of social, political and scientific issues. The two last posts on his page were made on October 19. In one, he is seen appreciating the BJP government for banning DJs and loudspeakers during processions in the state, and in the other post, he talks about allegations that followed the Chorbagan stampede which killed 19 people in Kolkata at a Durga Puja.
Another post by Shee from October 18 caried a video that has been restricted in India. The caption reads, translated from Bengali, “What is the actual truth behind the Chorebagan incident? Which version is correct? The official government figures or the claims made by the public? The government itself is abusing the law. Those in power are misusing their authority to silence the voices of ordinary citizens.”
Shee is a member of ‘Bharatiya Biggyan o Juktibadi Samity’ — an organization which aims to promote scientific temperament in the society.
Alt News spoke with Dipak Roy, a key member of the outfit. Roy mentioned that beside discussing political issues, Shee was vocal about various scientific and social issues.
“Surajit had been telling us that for almost a year that a section of local BJP-RSS workers had been harassing him over his social media content. The intensity of the harassment increased after May 4 (as BJP came to power in the state). On either October 17 or 18, Shee told me that his house had been attacked by the same group, who claimed that he was posting anti-national content. I suggested that he take shelter elsewhere. He then went to a friend’s house in Contai. The police arrested him from there on October 24,” alleged Roy.
Although Shee was detained by police on October 24, he was shown as arrested on October 25, Sunday, from his residence in Dantan, instead of Contai.
According to Roy, the group that attacked Shee’s house claimed that a complaint had been lodged against him at Dantan police station over his alleged ‘anti-national’ activities. Roy told Alt News that when Shee’s father and father-in-law went to the police station to enquire about the alleged complaints, the police could not produce any complaint lodged against him. Police allegedly told them that the chief minister had ordered Shee’s arrest and that it “would be better if he surrendered” or else they would “make an example out of him”.
During the arrest, Roy alleged that only three to four police personnel were present while nearly 20 RSS-BJP workers rounded him up. “Around 15-20 RSS-BJP workers surrounded the house of his friend in Contai. These people assaulted him before handing him over to the police, who then took him away in a car,” alleged Roy. “We thought Contai police had arrested him and arranged for a lawyer to represent him at the Contai sub-divisional court. However, later we realised that Shee had been arrested by Dantan police and was produced before the Dantan court.”
Roy further alleged that Shee’s family could access the legal documents related to the case two days after his arrest. Police have also allegedly seized Shee’s mobile phone, but no seizure list has been provided to his family.
Alt News’ attempts to contact both Dantan and Contain police were unsuccessful till publication time.
Alt News spoke to Tapan Jana, Shee’s maternal uncle, who said, “Surajit was produced in Dantan court on November 2, and police sought seven days of custody. However, the judge allowed only four days.”
“After he was remanded to police custody, an officer from Dantan police station verbally abused us when we went to meet him. The officer said that Surajit had insulted Sanatan Dharma, the state and central governments, and was inciting the public through his Facebook posts. He told us to make sure that Surajit reveals during questioning who had instructed him to make those posts,” Jana said.
“The officer further said that unless Shee confessed, he would make it difficult for him to get bail,” Jana added.
Akash Sarkar: Posts on Stampede and Suvendu Adhikari
Akash Sarkar (30) was arrested from his home in Nagerbazar on October 25, produced before the Barrackpore court on October 26, which ordered three days of police custody. He was released on bail on October 29.
Sarkar told Alt News that during interrogation, police pointed to three aspects of his posts which they claimed led to his arrest — his reference to Suvendu Adhikari’s ‘bhaipo’ (nephew) in connection with the Chorbagan stampede, his comments about the government’s handling of the situation following the stampede, and his use of the term ‘teen bati’ (three bowls) to refer to Adhikari.
Sarkar said, “In one of my Facebook posts, I had mentioned that Suvendu’s nephew was the chief patron of Chorbagan Sarbojonin, the puja where 19 people were trampled, and that he should take responsibility for the tragedy. I had also flagged the manner in which the Durga idol, with its hands tied, was taken away by the police for immersion.”
“I had written in my Facebook post that, according to the BJP, previous governments in West Bengal were not Sanatani. But even those governments did not treat the goddess in the way the Sanatani government treated her. The police flagged my post as religiously inflammatory and kept me in custody for three days,” added Sarkar.
According to Sarkar, in another post, he had addressed chief minister as ‘teen bati’ — a political jab aimed at Adhikari.
“The ‘teen bati’ jab was popularised by Ali Aftab Chand, a lawyer at the Calcutta high court who identifies himself as a ‘Rashtravadi Muslim’. He was not arrested. Is it because he is close to the BJP?” asked Sarkar.
According to the FIR, a person named Soumen Das had lodged a complaint against Sarkar, alleging that Sarkar “has been using his Facebook profile to publish false, defamatory, religiously inflammatory and provocative posts concerning the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Sri Narendra Modi and Hon’ble Chief Minister of India, Sri Suvendu Adhikari.”
“While I was in the lock-up, I heard from a few police personnel that our local MLA, Tarunjyoti Tiwari, had visited the police station and taken a personal interest in my case. Police hinted that although the charges against me were flimsy, orders from higher-ups were forcing them to keep me in custody,” he alleged, adding that the police was yet to return his phone.
Srimoyee Chakroborty: Posts Critical of State Government
Chakraborty had posted an update on her Facebook profile on October 26, mentioning that she had been held at the Bidhannagar East police station. She was later released the same day on a bond of Rs 2,000.
On October 26, she announced on Facebook that she was detained, while vowing to continue her fight. Her posts on Facebook reflect a similar pattern of posts critical of the BJP-led state and central government and its policies. However, it is not clear which particular post led to the administrative action.
A scroll through her Facebook timeline shows her vocal support for the Left.
Similar to Shee and Sarkar, Chakraborty had also made a series of posts critical of the government’s management of the Chorbagan stampede and the immersion process. On October 21, she shared the chief minister’s video where he announced that only people who follow Sanatana Dharma would participate in the Durga idol immersion process. In the caption, she referred to Adhikari as ‘teen bati’.
