Slapping Mamata's nephew is attempted murder? Arbitrary charges not new for Trinamool

The twenty-five-year old engineering student who slapped Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishekh Banerjee during a rally in East Midnapore ended up in hospital with a severely bleeding head and other injuries. After all, Abhishek’s fans - yes, they exist - wouldn’t take such an insult to their leader lying low. According to a report on The Telegraph, nearly 25 to 30 men, who beat up the youth haven’t been identified or arrested. And even if they are their charge would be attempt to commit culpable homicide. However, Debasish Acharya, the accused youth, has been charged with attempted murder. Now unless the West Bengal CM’s nephew has the strength of a mosquito, slapping anyone once could not have amounted to an ‘attempted murder’. However, logic is obviously secondary when it comes to the kin of the most powerful person in West Bengal at present. The ‘attempted murder’ charge has been met which much shock and ridicule by consumers of news but it must be pointed out that under Trinamool’s reign in West Bengal slapping arbitrary charges under laws taken out of context is nothing new. Here’s a hit-list of some of the citizens of Bengal Acharya has for company. Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra was charged under Section 66A of the Information and Technology Act, 2000 and  Section 500, 509 and 114 of the Indian Penal Code. Sec 66A is applied in cases when the accused’s action is ‘grossly offensive’  or is of a ‘menacing character’. It can also be slapped on a person who has circulated information which ‘he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device’. [caption id=“attachment_2031877” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Mamata Banerjee. Agencies.[/caption] Section 500 of IPC is for ‘punishment for defamation’, Section 509 is applied in cases when the accused’s ‘Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman’. Mahapatra’s “crime”? In April 2012, the professor had forwarded an email which contained a cartoon of Mamata Banerjee to some people. IBN Live reported: “The cartoon, based on Satyajit Ray’s movie Sonar Kella, allegedly shows Mamata and Railways Minister Mukul Roy discussing how to get rid of party MP Dinesh Trivedi.” While the very move to arrest the professor was absurd to say the least, charging him with a law meant to book people who ‘insult the modesty of a woman’ is the probably the most ridiculous part of the entire exercise. Shiladitya Chowdhury, a Midnapore farmer, was charged with ‘criminal intimidation and physically preventing a police officer from doing his duty’. What was his crime? In August 2012, he turned up in a Mamata Banerjee rally in Jhargram, West Midnapore and interrupted the chief minister’s speech. He reportedly asked the CM, ‘What are you doing for farmers? Farmers are dying because they have no money. Empty promises are not enough." The CM, furious at having been interrupted by the civilian, immediately suggested that he was a Maoist. He was rounded up from the venue itself and jailed. He later got bail, only after signing a personal surety bond for Rs 1,000. NDTV quoted Mukul Roy, now an accused in the Saradha scam as saying, “Anyone has a right to ask questions. But he did not ask any question. He was just shouting. I was present there.” Roy added that the accused had pushed some people including the police. Now, how does that qualify as ‘criminal intimidation’ given that the man didn’t threaten or abuse anyone present at the venue, the chief minister included? TMC leaders themselves couldn’t accuse him of any such activity, yet, they went to great lengths to justify why the man deserved to be thrown into jail. Thirty seven students of Jadavpur University, allegedly were not only manhandled and baton charged by the police when they refused to lift a peaceful gherao of the university’s VC’s office, they were also arrested. And what charges were they slapped with? Apart from unlawful assembly, they were also accused of ‘rioting’. The students had gheraoed the VC to demand a fair and quick probe into an incident of molestation that had taken place within the University premises in August. A probe had been constituted by the authorities but it made little headway. Several students - nearly 200 of them - had gheraoed the VC in September demanding action. When they refused to disperse even at 2 in the morning, the VC allegedly called the police. The police, it is being said, lathicharged the protesting students leaving some of them severely injured. The rest were arrested for rioting. Given the course of events, though, one’s not sure who was the bigger ‘rioter’ here. While the government machinery under the Mamata Banerjee government is usually quick to charge civilians with random laws, when it comes to its own brood, they are much more indulgent. For example last year, when a video showing Tapas Pal issuing rape threats, surfaced, TMC was aghast that people wanted him jailed. In fact, there was great confusion over what laws to charge Pal under. Filing of the FIR got delayed because the police and the judiciary couldn’t agree on what laws he should be charged with. Pal has now returned to his constituency and was seen doing meet-and-greets there letting bygones be bygones.