Statement against police attack on Nazrul Islam’s book

September 5, 2012
http://sanhati.com/

Released by APDR

Click here to read the original statement (in Bengali)

In recent times in West Bengal, there has been a continuous attack by the State on the right to freely express one’s own opinion. Freedom of expression is our democratic and constitutional right, even if such expressions are in opposition to traditional beliefs or to government’s opinions. The recent illegal police attack on Nazrul Islam’s book is one such example. That in a civilised country, such police attacks can be brought to bear upon a book which has not even been banned, is unimaginable to us.

We are against any attack on the freedom of expression. During the rule of the earlier Left Front government, we have opposed and condemned any such attack. Even now, we are condemning and protesting against all kinds of attacks, including that by the police, on Nazrul Islam’s book. At the same time, we are demanding that the chief minister Mamata Banerjee should remember her pre-election promise of restoring democracy and work towards implementing that.

Mahasweta Devi
Sunanda Sanyal
Kabir Suman
Tarun Sanyal
Kaushik Sen
Gautam Bhadra
Nabarun Bhattacharya

Pratul Mukhopadhyay
Dipankar Chakraborty
Sabyasachi Deb
Raghab Bandypadhyay
Suvendu Dasgupta
Sachchidananda Banerjee
Naba Dutta
Miratun Nahar
Jaya Mitra
Meher Engineer
Dr. Punyabrata Gun
Dipanjan Rai Chaudhuri
Amitadyuti Kumar
Bolan Gangyopadhay
Gautam Sen
Kumar Rana
Dilip Chakraborty
Nilanjan Dutta
Saswati Ghosh
Amit Bhattacharya
Chandana Mitra
Pranab De
Bipul Chakraborty
Subhashish Mukhopadhyay
Dipankar Das
Sumit Chaudhuri
Ashok Chattopadhay
Premanshu Dasgupta
Anusree Chakraborty
Tapas Chakraborty
Debprasad Raychaudhuri
Achintya Sural
Amit Dasgupta
Dhiraj Sengupta

On this issue, Sankha Ghosh says - “It is unthinkable that the police can make such an attack on a book which has not been banned. For the good of the State, the government should stop these activities immediately.”