Kolkata:
The West Bengal Human Rights Commission, headed by former Supreme Court judge, Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly, has recommended that the state government should pay Rs 50,000 each to former Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra and his neighbour Subroto Roy for their arrest in the middle of the night for circulating a cartoon of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The commission, which had taken suo moto cognisance of the incident, also recommended departmental enquiry against the officer in charge and sub-inspector of Jadavpur thana who arrested the two.
"The government must compensate Mr Mahapatra and Mr Sengupta for the manner in which they were arrested from their residential complex and detained for a non-cognisable offence. The compensation (should) be paid within a period of six weeks," Mr Ganguly said.
Reacting to the recommendations, Professor Mahapatra said, "People who directed the police personnel to take me and our housing cooperative society to the police station, and the person who complained against me should be punished. I think that behind these two personnel there are some big personnel who directed the police personnel to act according to their wish and police acted on that."
Taking a strong note of the incident, the commission said that citizens critical of the ruling party cannot be picked up from their residence by the police. "If this goes on, we will be heading towards a totalitarian regime and this commission cannot be a mute spectator to such a sordid situation."
On April 12, Professor Mahapatra was assaulted allegedly for forwarding anti-Mamata Banerjee cartoons via email to about 65 people. The professor was arrested by the police late on April 19 and produced in an Alipore court. He was released on bail later, but only after a written statement - which the professor said he was forced to write - that he was an active member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
(With Agency inputs)