KOLKATA: At a protest meet held in Esplanade on Monday, questions were raised about how a journalist close to the BJP-government at the Centre could share classified information involving national security and even flaunt how the martyrdom of jawans will be used for political gains.
Celebrities from all spheres of life, including Goutam Ghose, Subhaprasanna, Joy Goswami, Nirbed Roy, Pratul Mukhopadhyay, Raj Chakrabarty, Nusrat Jahan, Debleena Dutt Mukherjee, Saayoni Ghosh, Leena Gangopadhyay, Haranath Chakraborty, Tathagata Mukherjee, Sudeshna Roy, Kaushik Sen, Tanushree Chakraborty, Soumitra Ray, Sohini Sengupta, Paroma Banerjee, Lagnajita Chakraborty, Shankar Chakrabarty, Kanchan Mallick, Joyjeet Banerjee, Premendu Bikash Chaki, Suchismita Dasgupta, Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee and Riddhi Sen protested the rise of “fascist, power-hungry, misogynist forces in Bengal”.
They also criticized Saturday’s “insult” to chief minister Mamata Banerjee at Victoria Memorial and the recent gangrape threats against actors Debleena Dutt Mukherjee and Saayoni Ghosh. While Nusrat Jahan heavily came down against those who openly give rape threats to women, Debleena said rape can never be a form of punishment for a woman’s crime. “Prison terms and even hanging can be forms of punishment for crime. But not rape,” she said, while reading out the threat messages she received on social media in the recent past.
Kabir Suman, Ranjit Mallick, Madhabi Mukherjee, Parambrata Chatterjee, Ushasie Chakraborty, Srijato — who couldn’t attend the meet in person — sent in their messages that were read out. Without taking Arnab Goswami’s name, Parambrata’s message referred to the purported WhatsApp chats between Republic TV editor-in-chief and ex-BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta. It was alleged that the purported chats show that Goswami knew the details of the February 2019 Balakot air strike. “Remember these forces will remain silent when asked how secret information regarding national security are passed on to a journalist close to the government. They will also be reticent about how the same journalist can come to know that jawan’s martyrdom will be used for political mileage by the government,” Parambrata said in his message.
In his message, Srijato highlighted the importance of behaviour for creating an identity. Remembering how he and his family were subject to a vicious hate campaign for writing a poem, he pointed at the repetition of the same in case of Debleena and Saayoni. Shocked that death threats have become the first method of opposition to a contrary view, he said, “Yet, Bengal still stands against this. I’ve personally seen how Mamata Banerjee had supported me when I received death threats. She is doing the same now when women are getting gangrape threats. People should vote judiciously and prevent these forces from coming to power.”