Kolkata Police lodges FIR against Dilip, Mithun

KOLKATA: Two days after a complaint was lodged with Maniktala PS, Kolkata Police has registered an FIR against BJP state president Dilip Ghosh and actor Mithun Chakraborty, the party’s star campaigner, for promoting enmity.
Trinamool had claimed that both leaders made provocative remarks during campaigning. Cops have slapped IPC sections 153 (A), 504 and 505 pertaining to “promoting enmity between different groups, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace, public mischief” on Ghosh and Chakraborty.

The FIR read: “The fact of the case is that before May 6, the accused persons namely — Mithun Chakraborty, Dilip Ghosh and others — with their common intentions made provocative speeches or statements in different parts of Bengal on above mentioned time to provoke the people and promoted enmity into the communities that is detrimental to the harmony, thereby such statements of accused persons have resulted to breach of peace and public mischief in the state of Bengal.”
Though Ghosh did not reply to calls, Chakraborty’s lawyers said they were taking the legal route to quash the FIR. Mithun Chakraborty’s advocate Biman Sarkar told TOI: “As soon as we get a copy of the FIR, we will move the High Court to quash it. Subsequently, we will take legal steps against this illegal FIR. He has uttered the ‘Ami joldhorao noi, bele borao noi... ami ekta cobra, ek chobol-ei chobi (Don’t mistake me for a harmless snake, I am a cobra, can kill people in one bite’) dialogue on March 7 at the Brigade meeting in front of PM Narendra Modi.
This dialogue is from his 2006 film titled ‘Abhimanyu’. How did the Central Board of Film Certification allow it if it was part of hate speech? Besides that one utterance at Brigade, he has not used this dialogue during any of his campaign speeches in 2021. He made it clear that he couldn’t say this dialogue since the cameras of Election Commission were recording everything.”
“Since people still wanted to hear it, he used sign language to express himself. In case that was a provocation, why didn’t the EC send him a notice? Audio clippings of his campaign speeches mentioning that there will be no incidents of riot if BJP wins are available in public domain. Is that an instance of hate speech? During campaigning in 2021, he has not used the dialogue ‘marbo ekhane, lash porbe soshane’ from ‘MLA Fatakeshto’. This is a dialogue he had used in 2014 while campaigning for TMC in LS polls. Back then, saying it was not a provocation,” he added.
City cops on Saturday summoned more people for posting fake news. State police carried out arrests in Howrah, Cooch Behar. Cops said on Saturday most of the fake videos were that of old Bangladesh incidents. The court, meanwhile, rejected bail application of two accused nabbed by CID on Friday. They were sent to jail custody.