Kolkata: ‘Almost every YouTuber, who has been critical of the Mamata Banerjee government, has been slapped with police cases on frivolous and trumped up charges.’
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. 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.
“In 2022, I wrote a Facebook post on the precarious financial position of the state government. I named the piece ‘Nabanna Hele Gechhe’ (Nabanna is kneeling over), referring to Nabanna, the state secretariat,” he says. “The police slapped a case on me accusing me of spreading terror among state government employees who were working in the Nabanna building,” he adds.
One of the popular ways YouTubers say are used by the police to harass them is to issue multiple summons from different police stations on the same day and with no time to commute from one police station to the other.
Sanmoy Bandyopadhyay received summons under Section 41A to present himself at Beniapukur, Golf Green, Burtolla, and Hare Street police stations on the same date and at almost overlapping times.
Another popular YouTuber, who has faced the state’s wrath is Sk. Safikul Islam whose Arambagh TV has long been a thorn in the flesh of the Trinamool and the government. He says he has lost count of the number of cases filed against him. “The last I counted, it was well over 25 cases,” he told The Sunday Guardian.
He and his wife were arrested and detained for more than a month. “The police even tried to break into my house and tried to plant some narcotics to implicate me,” he says, adding that the police have charged him with all kinds of heinous crimes like rape and murder. The police also asked his bank to freeze his account for “investigations”.
Young YouTubers Shibam Das and Rojina Rahaman, whose channels The Independent Bengal and Bongo TV respectively, run interviews only, faced questions and even defamation cases because of what their interviewees said. “This happened despite the statutory declaration that the interviewees are solely responsible for their comments,” says Rojina, who has received four notices in 2024. Her advertiser too was contacted by senior state government officials and told not to advertise on Bongo TV, she adds.
Another YouTuber, Manab Guha too faced police wrath. He too was arrested.
The latest reports of police excesses were on Suddhashil Ghosh, who runs Priyo Bandhu Media.
On September 15, a large contingent of police officers arrived at his residence and even broke the lock of the door to conduct search and seizure operations. Several valuable items were seized, including laptops and mobile phones. Some of the confiscated items, such as laptops and mobile phones, belonged not only to Ghosh but also to his wife and their 8-year-old son. Despite the seizure, no copy of the seizure list was provided to him. The police also seized the CCTV cameras covering the inside of his home. Multiple cases under the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita and even POCSO were slapped on him.
He went to Calcutta High Court for succour and got it.
Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj, in his order, passed a damning indictment of the police.
He said: “This Court reviewed the FIRs filed against the petitioner, Mr. Suddhashil Ghosh, and found that they were based on speculative and tenuous grounds. The Court observes that the state respondents have failed to provide any credible or substantive basis for the allegations, which appeared to be aimed at suppressing the petitioner’s journalistic freedom. As such, the FIRs are deemed an abuse of the legal process. In granting interim relief, this Court underscored that actions by the state motivated by mala fide intent to stifle free speech and press freedom cannot be upheld. This Court emphasized that the allegations were not supported by any credible evidence and were intended to harass the petitioner and obstruct his journalistic activities.”
This was not the only relief that Ghosh received at the hands of the judiciary.
Just days earlier, after he aired several videos on the RG Kar rape and murder case, in which he asked for accountability from the Trinamool Congress government led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the police lodged cases against him in Siliguri and Matigara in north Bengal.
It was alleged that Ghosh had hurt the dignity of the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice of India since he had said that the Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognizance in several cases including the RG Kar rape and murder case. He said that about 10 such cases have been filed in the Supreme Court in the last year. But statistics show that earlier the Supreme Court took suo moto cognizance only in one or two cases on average per year.
Quashing the FIRs, Justice Amrita Sinha of the Calcutta High Court observed: “As regards the allegation of airing offensive, defamatory and menacing report against the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India, the police could not have taken steps in response to such allegation till there is any complaint lodged either by the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India or upon the instruction of the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India.”
She further said: “The Court is not at all convinced that there is any likelihood to cause fear or alarm to the public or to any section of the public to commit an offence against the state or against the public tranquility by the act of the petitioner. The right to free speech ought not to be curtailed by putting threats on individuals to initiate criminal proceedings.”
Advocate Sabyasachi Chatterjee, who has been the lawyer of choice for almost all the YouTubers, said: “This government is continuously filing false and frivolous complaints against YouTubers. The Mamata Banerjee government and her party are using the police to harass them. The state government had been claiming that YouTubers are not journalists because they are performing various duties like authors, publishers, editors etc., and are not covered under the Working Journalists Act. However, the Calcutta High Court has repeatedly stood up for liberty and the rule of law. It has also made it clear that under the liberal interpretation of law, the YouTubers are also journalists and enjoy the right to free speech. That is a very big recognition for these fearless fighters.”