A section of intellectuals Tuesday pointed the finger at West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee government for the detention of Bengali filmmaker Suman Mukhopadhyay.
Known to be vocal against the Banerjee government, especially after one of his controversial movies was denied certification, Mukhopadhyay was detained by at the New Town police station for over 23 hours before being allowed to go home Monday night.
Police picked up the filmmaker for questioning after Bengali actress Swastika Mukherjee, said to be close to him, was hospitalised with an injury on her arm fueling speculation of a suicide bid.
"While several versions of the incident that has happened are doing rounds, for me it was an accident and the good thing is she (Swastika) is now out of danger.
"I was interrogated on a lot of issues by various officers. I had to spend around 23 hours at the police station and was told by my lawyers that I may be arrested. But later they decided not to arrest me," Mukhopadhyay said Tuesday.
Reacting angrily on the issue, noted educationist Saswati Ghosh said the overzealousness of police in the case was a clear indication of a political motive behind it.
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"When no complaint was filed, then what is the reason behind police's overzealousness? In fact, the way police is being used as a political tool, people are fast losing faith in the administration. The irony is whenever a person is arrested, people think him to innocent and wonder if the action is politically motivated," said Ghosh.
Echoing similar sentiments, eminent actor Kaushik Sen said he suspected some other reasons behind Mukhopadhyay's arrest.
"Questions are bound to rise when there is no definite reason or evidence against Suman. He was detained for hours, but the way he was interrogated, it was ample clear that they did not had anything to ask. It's clear, there is some other reason behind his detention," said Sen.
--Indo-Asia News Service
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