WB govt rejects compensation for Prof Ambikesh Mahapatra

The West Bengal government has rejected recommendation for compensation to a professor of Jadavpur University arrested last year for circulating cartoons on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, saying that there has been no violation of human rights.
"The state government has rejected the recommendation that Prof Ambikesh Mahapatra and his neighbour Subrata Sengupta be given compensation of Rs 50,000 each and action be taken against police officers who arrested them," West Bengal Human Rights Commission Joint Secretary Sujay Kumar Halder told PTI here.
"The state government has said that it did not feel that there has been any human rights violation in dealing with the Mahapatra case," Halder said.

The state government has contended that the police rescued Prof Mahapatra and his neighbour from being assaulted by a mob and took them to a police station for their own safety, Haldar added.
Mahapatra and Sengupta were arrested in April last year for circulating cartoons on social networking site Facebook mocking Mamata Banerjee and her party general secretary Mukul Roy.