Widespread protests took place across the Indian province of West Bengal following the arrest of Kalatan Dasgupta, leader of the left-wing Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI). Protesters allege Dasgupta was arrested on false charges in order to derail the ongoing movement for justice for the victim of rape and murder of a female doctor at the RG Kar public hospital last month.
Dasgupta was arrested on Saturday, September 14 from a protest site for allegedly conspiring against the state. His arrest took place after one of the leaders of the ruling TrinaMool Congress (TMC) released an audio clip and claimed that Dasgupta was conspiring to malign the image of the government. The TMC leader alleged that in the phone conversation Dasgupta was heard planning an attack on the junior doctors protesting in front of the health ministry in order to blame the government for the failure to protect them. Police filed a report on the basis of that claim. Dasgupta was later sent to seven days’ police remand.
Dasgupta is a central committee member of the DYFI and was one of the organizers and leaders of the movements around RG Kar. He is also the editor of DYFI’s main publication in Bengali juboshakti (youth power).
Dasgupta has denied the allegations calling them baseless and claiming that there is an attempt to frame him and others in order to derail the RG Kar movement.
Junior doctors in the state have been on strike since August 10, the day after the rape and murder of one of their colleague at the state-run RG Kar hospital in Kolkata. They are demanding action against the top officials responsible for the incident and better security at workplaces.
They have been in talks with the state government in the last couple of days while staging a sit-in in front of the health ministry in Kolkata.
DYFI and other left groups such as Student Federation of India (SFI) and All India Democratic Women Association (AIDWA) have been supporting the doctor’s agitation and have consistently organized protests, night vigils and rallies in support of their demands for over a month now.
Right-wing forces are backed into a corner
DYFI has termed the charges against Dasgupta to be false and demanded his immediate release. The organization has carried out large scale mobilizations across the state to protest the “vicious political attack” on its opponents by the TMC led government in the state. During the protests on Monday and Tuesday DYFI activists surrounded several police stations across Kolkata city and across the state for hours.
Meenakshi Mukherjee, the DYFI state secretary and one of the key leaders of the movement for the justice in the RG Kar rape and murder told NewsClick that Dasgupta’s arrest should be seen in the context of the fact that both the government and the police is scared that this struggle [the RG Kar movement] has continued and become a mass movement.
Dasgupta, one of the leaders of the movement, was “arrested in an attempt to break [the movement] as the focus of their attack is left’s student, youth and women organizations mainly SFI, DYFI and AIDWA,” Mukherjee said.
Mukherjee also claimed that the left has been targeted by both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ruling at the center government and the TMC, as the left-led movement poses a threat to both right-wing parties. She claimed that several protests organized by the left in the state have been attacked by both the BJP cadres and the state police controlled by the TMC.
Despite the attacks, “fights against torturous regime-the legal fight and the fight in the streets-will continue side by side,” Mukherjee claimed.
