Kolkata: Cracking the whip on the circulation of ‘objectionable’ content on social media, the West Bengal cybercrime cell on Thursday arrested senior Congress leader Sanmoy Bandyopadhyay for making critical remarks on the ruling TMC government in the state.
The Congress leader was arrested late Thursday night near his residence in Sodepur of North 24-Parganas. While the specific charges against Sanmoy were not immediately known, West Bengal Congress president, Somendra Nath Mitra said he was arrested for criticizing the “misrule of the TMC government on Facebook and other social media platforms.”
Condemning the arrest, Mitra added, “We will fight it politically and legally. Such arrests will not stop us from raising our voice against the misrule of Mamata Banerjee in Bengal." The state party head further blamed the TMC leaders and said that it seems the police acted on their instruction.
This is not the first time that an arrest was made on the basis of a social media post in the state.
Recently, BJP leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, who was in Kolkata to attend Amit Shah’s road show, was detained for uploading a morphed photograph of the Banerjee. The same morphed image was later used by another BJP leader, Priyanka Sharma, who was arrested on May 10 but was released on bail after a Supreme Court intervention.
At that time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had hit out at Banerjee, accusing her of being an arrogant minister and said that he will not lodge a police complaint even if she will makes the worst portrait of him.
Earlier in 2012, Ambikesh Mahapatra, a professor of at Jadavpur University in Kolkata was arrested for circulating an ‘objectionable’ caricature of Banerjee. Then, there were protests staged by the film industry in February against the mysterious disappearance of ‘Bhobishoyoter Bhoot’ -- a film that mocked the ruling TMC and other parties – from cinema halls of Bengal.
With the arrest of Sanmoy Bandyopadhyay – the state Congress leadership is planning to hold a protest rally at Sodepur. “We have to understand that this is a political arrest. We will fight it politically. TMC is exposed and people are losing trust on them,” Mitra said.
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