Four Trinamool workers arrested after professor's complaint

Kolkata, April 14 (IANS) Four people were arrested Saturday following a counter police complaint by a Jadavpore University professor, who was earlier arrested for allegedly circulating allegedly defamatory cartoons of some Trinamool Congress leaders including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, an official said here.

"Four people have been arrested today (Saturday) following a complaint filed by professor Ambikesh Mahapatra that he was assaulted and intimidated by a group of people," Deputy Commissioner of police (south sub-urban division) Sujay Chanda told IANS.

The four arrested are reportedly Trinamool Congress workers.

Mahapatra in his complaint had alleged that he was physically assaulted by a group of people and was forced to give a written undertaking that he was a Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) worker and circulated the cartoons at the party's behest.

Mahapatra along with the secretary of his housing society, Subrata Sengupta, were arrested early Friday and later granted bail by a court.

The collage of cartoons by Mahapatra allegedly includes the photographs of Banerjee and Railway Minister Mukul Roy and uses some dialogues of Satyajit Ray's detective masterpiece "Sonar Kella", showing the duo discussing how to get rid of party leader Dinesh Trivedi, who was forced by the chief minister to give up the railways portfolio.

'Mukul' is incidentally the name of the child protagonist in the movie.

The arrest evoked widespread condemnation from political parties, eminent personalities and the common people in West Bengal.