The CPM on Saturday said the arrest of DYFI leader Kalatan Dasgupta was a result of a “criminal conspiracy” and mirrored the “modus-operandi the RSS-BJP had deployed in the Bhima Koregaon case and during the farmers’ movement in Delhi”.
Dasgupta was arrested based on an audio clip that Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh played on Friday. Ghosh said the audio exposed a conspiracy by Left organisations to attack junior doctors who were demonstrating off Swasthya Bhavan in Salt Lake and to cast further doubt on the Bengal government and chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Ghosh claimed that the two persons heard in the conversation in the audio clip belonged to a Left youth organisation and an ultra-Left outfit.
Police arrested Dasgupta while he was returning home early Saturday morning from a site near Lalbazar where Left Front leaders and supporters were staging an overnight sit-in to demand the removal of city police commissioner Vineet Goyal.
CPM leaders said the promptness of Bidhannagar police to file a suo moto case based on the audio clip made it clear that a conspiracy had been hatched jointly by Trinamul and the cops to defame and derail the protest over the junior doctor’s rape and murder at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
“The chronology of events that led to the arrest of Kalatan clearly showed that it was a criminal conspiracy to defame the ongoing movement to demand justice for theRG Kar victim,” said CPM state secretary Md Salim, who was away in New Delhi to attend the last journey of the party’s general secretary, Sitaram Yechury.
Salim added: “Trinamool’s tactics were reminiscent of the modus operandi the RSS-BJP had deployed in the Bhima Koregaon case and during the farmers’ movement in Delhi. Fake electronic evidence was used to frame people in the Bhima Koregaon and Delhi riots case and the farmers’ movement. It is a clear case of trying to frame a young activist in a fabricated case. The Trinamool government in Bengal replicated what the BJP government did in the Bhima Koregaon case.”
While demanding the unconditional release of Dasgupta, Salim accused the TMC’s IT cell of “mastering the use of deepfake and creating fake (audio-video) clips”.
The CPM leader demanded action against those involved in creating such “fake evidence” and said “no ploy” would derail their movement to demand justice for the RG Kar victim and the removalof Goyal.
DYFI state secretary Minakshi Mukherjee said the youth organisation, along with the SFI and the AIDWA, would hold agitations across the state to demand justice for the RG Kar victim and protest the illegal arrest of Dasgupta.
“If the government thought they would scare us with such repressive measures, they would be proved wrong too soon,” Mukherjee said from the dharna site in Shyambazar.
Responding to the CPM’s charge that he had circulated an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated audio clip to frame the DYFI, Ghosh said: “If what has been heard in the audio clip is proven true, it is a serious issue and police will check its veracity. The clip reveals a plot to attack doctors to create a case to use against the Mamata Banerjee government and Trinamool. CPM leaders should first say whether it is Kalatan’s voice.”
CPM leaders asked how Trinamool got such audio and video clips first.
“This is a serious issue. The police should probe Kunal Ghosh about the source of the audio clip because only the police can track or record phone calls with relevant permission,” said a CPM leader.
BJP leader Sukanta Majumdar saw a TMC-CPM game in the incident.
“The two parties are hand-in-glove. The CPM shared the audio clip with theruling party, and the arrests were made to pave the way for the CM’s visit to the dharna site today,” Majumdar said.