Mamata administration's targeting of YouTubers backfires

Over the past five years, as the news of the alleged corrupt practices during Mamata Banerjee's government started hitting the headlines, the government and the Trinamool Congress began targeting critics using the police.

- SUPROTIM MUKHERJEE

In the crosshairs has been a bunch of YouTubers who have garnered name and fame by bringing to light the various "sins" of the ruling dispensation.

"Almost every YouTuber, who has revealed embarrassing details or has been critical of the Mamata Banerjee government, has been slapped with police cases on frivolous and trumped up charges. These are meant to harass and browbeat them into silence.

But it has backfired spectacularly. In almost all cases.

Whenever these have been appealed against in the Calcutta High Court, the government has ended up with egg on its face," says senior advocate and Rajya Sabha member Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya.

The facts bear him out.

Eminent journalist Suman Chattopadhyay, who, after a stellar career in Bengali print and television journalism, turned to YouTube with his channel Banglasphere, received summons from police from far-off Krishnanagar, asking him to present himself at short notice.

Special treatment has been reserved for YouTubers who are seen as BJP-leaning.

Sanmoy Bandyopadhyay, who runs Banglar Barta, has had more than 16 complaints and cases slapped against him in the past five years. He has been arrested, assaulted and accused of getting foreign funds and also funding anti-national activities.

"In 2019, I did a piece on a man from Patharpratima who sold his land and mortgaged his shop to raise money to give bribes to Trinamool leaders to secure teachers' jobs for his family members.

He was given fake appointment letters. He went to the police but they didn't help him. However, an FIR was lodged against me in Purulia in the Cybercrime Police Station and I was arrested.

No 41A notice was issued. I was detained, tortured and even accused of funding subversive activities," says Bandyopadhyay.