State-wide Protests at DYFI leader’s Arrest

As weeks pass without a significant breakthrough in the case of gruesome rape and murder of a trainee post graduate Doctor at RG Kar Hospital in Kolkata, Kolkata Police has been busy devising new ways to pressurise and deflate on the “Justice for RG Kar” movement.

According to allegations of the protesters, Kalatan Dasgupta one of leading protester of the movement and editor of Juboshkati, the main publication of Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) in West Bengal , was arrested on 14 September by the Kolkata police. He has been accused of conspiring against the State, citing an audio clip circulated by ruling party members, where a TMC activist Sanjib Das allegedly conspired with Kalatan to bomb the doctors’ protest site in Saltlake and RG Kar Hospital. Kalatan has expressed his innocence in the case and asserted that he is being framed in the case. After arresting the DYFI leader police produced him in court from where they got 7-days police remand.

Dasgupta’s arrest caused intense anger and discontent among the people. At the call of DYFI, police stations were gheraoed in different parts of the city in the last 24 hours including Charu Market, Jadavpore, Beleghata, Parnashree, Behala police stations among others. Protests were also held in the districts like Siliguri (Darjeeling), Durgapur (Burdwan West), Sonarpur (South 24 Paragans), Burdwan (Burdwan East), Krishnanagar (Nadia), Baharampur (Murshidabad), Purulia and Bankura districts among others.

Newsclick spoke with DYFI State secretary Meenakshi Mukherjee who said that from the the incident happened, SFI and DYFI are fighting for justice on the roads. “Kalatan is a leading DYFI activist and state leader. He is also with the movement which has now become a peoples’ movement. The doctors are showing a laudable fighting temperament in this movement. Now, people are understanding that this matter is not only of a gruesome rape and murder, but a concerted ploy to hide and shield the criminals involved in health corruption. The government and the police is fearing this struggle and is trying to break it. The focus of their attack is the left student, youth and women’s organisations mainly the SFI, DYFI, AIDWA. Kalatan has been arrested in the false and baseless case in this context”.

Mukherjee added, “We were startled when RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat claimed that in West Bengal, communists are their main adversaries and not Mamata. From that time onwards, the attack on the left student youth forces for leading the movement has been started by the police. Not only SFI, DYFI, AIDWA, but throughout the state protesters are facing the attack of police. Both these fights against this torturous regime - the legal fight and the fight in the streets - will continue side by side and we will be taking stands in that direction”.

Speaking to Newsclick, Kallol Majumdar, secretary of CPI(M) Kolkata district Committee and state secretariat member of CPI(M) said that that movement has taken a huge proportion.

“The mothers, the teachers, the doctors are at the forefront of this protest movement and the police and administration, and the chief minister is threatening the movement participants to stay away from the roads, and threatening the doctors to return to their jobs, abandoning the justice movement for Tilottama in the lurch. Now the state has adopted the path of assaulting the people’s right to protest against the gruesome rape and murder. First, they tried in prove that the RG Kar mayhem of 14th August night was the handiwork of leftists. Not getting any proof of that, they are now trying to arrest the leaders of these movement especially the youths by honey-trapping and other conspirational avenues. We will see to that by going through the legal avenues so that justice is delivered, but this initial stages will prove to be harassment for the youth leaders being implicated in false case. Apart from this Rupsa Mondal, a youth, has been arrested recently for her Facebook post on the issue of RG Kar rape and murder. Leftist will take up the cudgels for each of these cases,” he said talking to Newsclick.