YouTuber Roddur Roy was arrested from Goa on Tuesday on charges of sending offensive messages on social media, defamation and insulting the modesty of a woman through words.
“Roy is being brought on transit remand from Goa and will be produced in a court in Kolkata on Wednesday,” said a senior officer of Kolkata police’s cyber cell.
A known face on Bengali social media, Roy had recently commented against chief minister Mamata Banerjee during a Facebook Live session on the controversy surrounding singer Rupankar Bagchi’s statement about the deceased Bollywood singer KK.
In the session, Roy had allegedly made derogatory remarks against Bagchi, the chief minister and several members of her cabinet and other party leaders.
Earlier, Roy had mocked Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi’s decision to confer a literary award on Mamata.
Trinamul leader Riju Dutta had on June 3 lodged a complaint with Chitpore police station in north Kolkata alleging that Roy had “maligned the state of West Bengal” and “perennially uses derogatory remarks against our police force”.
Complaints were also lodged against him with several other police stations, including Patuli and Hare Street, and also with the cyber cell.
This is not the first time complaints have been lodged against Roy. In March 2020, a complaint had been filed against him for allegedly composing parodies of Rabindranath Tagore’s songs using expletives.
The Association for Protection of Democratic Rights has condemned the arrest saying this amounts to attempts at throttling the voice of artistes who want to speak their mind. There may be reservations about the way in which Roy has voiced his opinions but that shouldn’t mean he should be arrested, the rights body has said.
The police said a team of officers tracked Roy’s mobile tower locations and traced him to a hotel in Goa. A team of officers left for Goa and arrested Roy on Tuesday afternoon.