Police arrested Ambikesh Mahapatra, a professor of chemistry of Jadavpur University for sending e-mails that show chief minister Mamata Banerjee, former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi and railway minister Mukul Roy in a poor light.
Police sources say Subrata Sengupta, a neighbour
of Mahapatra, has also been arrested. Among the charges slapped against the two are some sections of the IT Act.
The cartoon in question has been doing the rounds in West Bengal after Mamata forced Trivedi out of the rail ministry and put Roy in his place. Apparently, the cartoon is a caricature of Satyajit Ray's detective masterpiece on celluloid Sonar Kella. The police have come to know Mahapatra has sent the mail to about 65 people. However, it is not yet clear what are the charges that the police has slapped against the professor.
Trinamool Congress supporters attacked him at his residence at New Garia on Thursday night. They accused him to sending disparaging e-mails that showed chief minister, railway minister and the former railway minister in a poor light, and uploading the cartoon on his Facebook account.
According to Jadavpur University sources, police arrived at the scene when the Trinamool supporters were heckling the professor. Police picked him up and took him to the East Jadavpur police station. He was shown arrested on Friday morning.
Mahapatra would be produced to the court on Friday.
The arrest has already triggered a rising tide of protest in the university campus, with a section of his colleagues and students defending his action as a part of his right to express his views. Over the past few weeks a section of Kolkata's intellectuals who campaigned for Mamata before the 2011 assembly polls, have started protesting against what they call dictatorial tendencies of her government.