Hate letter to painter Shuvaprasanna: CID launches probe

KOLKATA: Among the pro-change intellectuals, they still remain the most vocal supporters of chief minister Mamata Banerjee even as others swayed. And they could be paying the price for their unflinching loyalty. The CID is investigating a hate letter to painter Shuvaprasanna that not only denigrates him, dramatist Arpita Ghosh and the chief minister, but also threatens them to "mend their ways."
"I have been receiving many such letters that are derogatory and attack me personally.However, this letter, which I received a fortnight back, crossed all limits. It wasn't only an attack on me but also the chief minister and Arpita Ghosh. Moreover, there were implicit threats in it. I handed over the letter to the chief minister. A few days back, I was advised to lodge a complaint, which I did at Bidhannagar East police station," Shuvaprasanna said.
Bidhannagar police commissioner Rajeev Kumar said the case has been handed to CID.
Mamata blames CPM and its supporters for "vitiating the atmosphere even at the personal level". "They are not sparing the media and journalists, and even targeting veteran artist Shuvaprasanna in their hate campaign. This is also evident on social networking sites. The language used is extremely objectionable. Is this acceptable in any democratic set-up? Can't anyone have a different view? The matter will be investigated," she said on Tuesday. "In their (Left) tenure, they never had to deal with media. Now out-of-power they are using these tools to spread lies and falsehood," she was quoted in the party mouthpiece, Jago Bangla.
Shuvaprasanna said he'd been ignoring hate letters until now. "Itpains me that insinuations were made (in the recent letter) that I took financial and other benefits for being a vocal advocate for change. At this stage and age in life, I believe I have crossed all that. But this last letter seemed different. I believe it isn't many people who are writing such derogatory letters, three to four groups primarily, which is evident from the language and tenor. Now police will try to unravel the truth," he said.
On April 13, this year Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra was arrested for using a housing society e-mail ID (of which he was an assistant secretary) to forward a cartoon that made fun of Mamata Banerjee and railway minister Mukul Roy on the Dinesh Trivedi issue. Even as the government - and Kolkata Police - faced all-round criticism for the arrest, Mamata stuck to her ground and said the word "vanish" used in the cartoon (a spoof of the Satyajit Ray classic 'Sonar Kella') actually to meant "murder". She even questioned Mahapatra's intention of using an email ID which wasn't his own.
CID is probing two complaints lodged the same month by Salt Lake resident Suman Naskar - a Trinamool supporter - and Bikarm Saha, an associate professor of medicine at Midnapore Medical College and Hospital, on posts on their Facebook walls denigrating chief minister Mamata Banerjee.