The police kept a first-year student chained to the bed post of a hospital where he was admitted for treatment sparking allegation of gross violation of human rights. The “inhuman incident” was witnessed in the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri.
First-year student and SFI leader Santosh Sahni was among the 50 CPI(M) supporters who were arrested on April 10 along with former minister Ashok Bhattacharya in Siliguri for allegedly attacking a Trinamul Congress rally. Although Mr Bhattacharya insists that the police had arrested them from their party office Anil Biswas Bhavan.
Later, Sahni and others were produced in the court which sent them to 14-day judicial custody. He had been in jail since then. On Monday, he was taken to North Bengal Medical College and Hospital after he fell ill. In the hospital, his left leg was fastened with the bedpost with a chain. When channels aired the news, the disturbing visuals sparked state-wide outrage and protest. Worried about adverse publicity, the police removed the chain from the youth’s leg. When asked why did the police keep Santosh chained to the hospital bed like a hardened criminal, the commissioner of police of Siliguri commissionerate Anand Kumar passed the buck to the jail authorities.
“The police has nothing to do with the incident. You should ask the jail guard about this,” he added.
Political parties and civil liberty organisations were up in arms against the Mamata Banerjee government for this “barbaric treatment” of a student. Lambasting the police and the administration for what he described as a gross abuse of Santosh’s human rights, well-known civil liberty activist Sujato Bhadra said: “By keeping him chained, the police treated him like a criminal although he has not yet been convicted.”
Condemning the unprecedented incident, CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose said that it exposed the inhuman face of the state government. “First the death of a student in police custody and now an ill student kept in chains in the hospital. These are clear signs of a repressive regime. Left Front leaders and workers are being assaulted and our party offices are being damaged and set ablaze. Such systematic persecution of the Opposition workers was never seen before. The situation today is even worse than during the Emergency,” Mr Bose added.
He also mentioned a tragedy which followed the Siliguri arrests. Bani Dey, the mother of another student and a DYFI member Amit Dey died of heart attack after her son’s arrest. “Political party leaders and workers had never been arrested on false charges on such a large scale as had been done in Siliguri,” he claimed.