Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra has lodged a complaint with the West Bengal Human Rights Commission, alleging that police’s declaration of him as an absconder “attacks the citizen’s fundamental rights and human rights”.
The declaration resulted in an arrest warrant against him.
Mahapatra emailed to the commission on Friday: “These acts by the Kolkata police administration followed by Ld ACJM (additional chief judicial magistrate) attacks the citizen’s fundamental rights and human rights…. In this context, I can expect as a law-abiding citizen, punishment of law-violating persons from the law enforcing agencies as early as possible.”
Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya, chairperson of the commission, said: “The commission has received a complaint from the JU professor. The commission is likely to meet next week and discuss the complaint, and then decide on the next course of action.”
Mahaparta said he referred to the ACJM because it was unclear to him why the court did not ask the police how they could pronounce a university professor who was actively involved in all activities on the campus an absconder.
“The Alipore court issued arrest warrant against me as many as seven times starting January 2019 on the grounds that I was absconding. But during the period I visited the court several times in response to legal proceedings in the cartoon case,” Mahapatra said.
The teacher approached the commission days after he surrendered before the Alipore criminal court and secured bail. He had to surrender and plead for bail because a police chargesheet filed in the same court in March 2018 had referred to him as an absconder.
“I have written to the commission because what has happened to me is a clear case of human rights violation.... As I have said earlier, I was taking classes in the chemistry department, supervising research in the lab and taking part in discussions on TV channels in 2018, as I am doing now. Still, the police labelled me as an absconder,” the professor told The Telegraph.
“I had to surrender in the court for an alleged offence committed in 2016, about which I was not aware until late February this year. What could be a more fit case of violation of fundamental rights and human rights than this?”
A case of assault and snatching Rs 5,000 was apparently filed against him at Haridevpur police station on April 30, 2016, when he was contesting the Assembly elections as an Independent candidate from Behala East.
Mahapatra has been at the forefront of many protests against the state government’s alleged highhandedness since his arrest in 2012 for allegedly circulating an Internet joke on chief minister Mamata Banerjee. After the original charges against him had been dropped in January this year, he applied for a regular renewal of passport (10 years). Earlier, he could only apply for renewal for a year because of the pending charges against him.
It was when he applied for a regular renewal that the professor came to know about the other case.
The renewal has stalled because of the latest case, in which the IPC sections related to unlawful assembly, wrongful restraint, assault and criminal intimidation have been slapped on him.
Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly, a retired judge of the Supreme Court and former chairman of the state human rights commission, said: “I support his (Mahapatra’s) views. It is very unfortunate that he has been shown as an absconder.... He is not a criminal who is trying to evade the process of law.”
The commission under Justice Ganguly had in May 2013 refused to accept the state government’s justification for the arrest of Mahapatra in the cartoon case.
