In the hallowed halls of Kolkata’s Anandabazar Patrika, a legend was in the making. Debmalya Bagchi became the first ABP journalist to face detention after Gour Kishore Ghosh’s arrest during the 1975 Emergency. Ghosh, one of the most distinguished journalists at the 101-year-old newspaper, won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1981.
On 6 September, Bagchi, who has been reporting from West Bengal’s Kharagpur for the past 10 years, was arrested for allegedly verbally and physically assaulting a woman belonging to a Scheduled Tribe.
Bagchi was scheduled to appear in court today. But in dramatic developments late on Thursday, he was granted bail for 14 days on a bond of Rs 2,000. Bail was granted on the condition that he wouldn’t enter the police station area where the aggrieved ST woman, Saraswati Singh, lives or contact her in any way for two weeks. The bail order came after Singh appeared in court and stated she had no objection to Bagchi getting bail.
The 33-year-old’s arrest has turned the spotlight on how the media is faring in West Bengal. And it is not a happy picture.
Bagchi isn’t the first
Journalists have had cases filed against them en masse. Ten of them, along with BJP state chief Sukanta Majumdar, were named in an FIR in January for reporting that people in north Bengal had hurled stones at a new Vande Bharat train. The railways later clarified that the stone-throwing incident happened at Kishanganj in Bihar, not Bengal.
Also in January, eight journalists in Nadia district’s Nabadwip were named in an FIR after a civic official complained they had ‘maligned’ the municipality by claiming it was charging “cut money” from citizens for providing running water connections.
In June 2020, the owner of Arambagh TV channel in Hooghly district, Sheikh Safiqul Islam, was arrested for alleged extortion. Last October, Manab Guha, a Kolkata-based journalist, was picked up for his “provocative” report on a clash in the city’s Iqbalpur area, which has been described variously as a communal and a casteist clash.
And now, there’s Bagchi in Kharagpur, booked under various IPC sections and the stringent SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989. There is no anticipatory bail, nor the need for a preliminary investigation into the accusations before an arrest. He was sent to judicial custody until 15 September, which ends today. The charge against Bagchi attracts imprisonment of six months to five years.
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Bagchi’s report
The journalist’s arrest came days after he reported on an illegal hooch trade flourishing in the Sanjoal area of Kharagpur, to which the police and civic authorities had allegedly turned a blind eye. His report was based on a written complaint by residents, including one Basanti Das, who had been protesting against hooch dens and the problems drunken men were causing in the neighbourhood.
Bagchi’s 26 August report resulted in a police ‘crackdown’ on the hooch den in which a few inebriated men were picked up but not a single hooch dealer, all of whom had fled.
The next day, the hooch sellers gathered outside Das’s house and threatened her with dire consequences for complaining to the press about their illegal trade.
On 28 August, one Saraswati Singh filed an FIR accusing Basanti Das, her neighbour, and Bagchi of insulting her and her family by hurling casteist abuse and pulling and tearing her saree.
Singh describes herself as an ST community member in the FIR and is reportedly related to some of the hooch sellers in the area who are furious with Das for her complaint and with Bagchi for his newspaper article.
Nine days after Singh’s complaint, the police reportedly arrived at Bagchi’s house in the dead of night. Bagchi detailed this experience in his social media posts, which are now unavailable. They surrounded his house flashed torch lights into his home, and asked him to step out, Bagchi wrote on Facebook. As advised by fellow journalists whom he had called for help, Bagchi didn’t go out. Phone calls to police officials allegedly went unanswered. At 10:30 am, Bagchi went to the police station where he was arrested. There is no word from the police on the midnight raid on his home.
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Opposition, journalists protest
Ever since his arrest, journalists across Bengal have taken to the streets. Protest marches have been held in several districts from north to south Bengal, and several of them have written to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, asking her to intervene. Kolkata Press Club president Snehasis Sur, too, met with Banerjee, urging her to ensure Bagchi’s release. The CM has asked the police to handle the case with sensitivity.
Opposition parties have taken up the issue as well. BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari called Bagchi’s arrest a “semi-emergency-like situation in West Bengal under Mamata Banerjee’s authoritarian regime.” Congress’s Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury wrote to the CM, asking her “to do what is needed to save and protect the fourth pillar of democracy”. The CPM has criticised Banerjee for cracking down on media that is critical of her.
ABP has carried reports critical of Mamata and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee in the recent past, especially about the latter, whom the Enforcement Directorate has questioned in cases related to the school teachers’ recruitment scam and a coal smuggling scam. The opposition attributes the ruling party’s wrath to these reports.
Those prone to whataboutism will say the situation is much worse in other parts of the country, certainly under the BJP government. And there may be some truth to that. But like the 2007 police firing in Nandigram that shook the nation, when it happens in West Bengal, it feels like we have hit rock bottom.
The author is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. She tweets @Monideepa62. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)