Hurling eggs at politicians “has become a social evil” and making stray arrests for the menace will not solve the problem, Calcutta High Court said on Tuesday.
There is a need to hold social awareness programmes to prevent egg-throwing, a bench headed by acting Chief Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty said while referring to the targeting of Trinamool Congress leaders and functionaries after the party’s defeat in the Assembly elections.
The bench, which also had Justice Partha Sarathi Sen, asked the state government to file a report detailing the number of arrests and other actions taken against those accused of hurling eggs. The matter will be heard again on July 20.
“This has become a social evil and there has to be public awareness programmes to eradicate it,” acting Chief Justice Chakraborty said. “Merely starting to arrest would not solve the problem. The state should set up a guideline for police to follow and organise social awareness programmes against the act (of hurling eggs),” he added.
The lawyer appearing for the state submitted that the government was against such a culture and was taking “penal actions against the offenders”.
The bench was hearing a PIL petition filed by advocate Danish Farooqui on behalf of Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee and some other senior leaders of the party seeking the court’s intervention.
Advocate Kalyan Banerjee also represented Abhishek and the other petitioners. Advocate Rajdeep Majumder appeared for the state government.
The targeting of Trinamool leaders with eggs began with an attack on Abhishek on May 30 in Sonarpur and later caught on. Many Trinamool leaders and functionaries across the state have since been hit with eggs during protests.
Former Bidhannagar mayor Sabyasachi Dutta, Trinamool MLA Kunal Ghosh, state unit vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar, former minister Udayan Guha, and a host of former civic councillors who have been arrested over the past month have faced egg attacks. The councillors were targeted when they were being produced in court.
The police are not known to have launched a major crackdown on egg throwers, while being seen trying to shield their faces from the projectiles.
Justice Sen said on Tuesday that it was the responsibility of the police to ensure the protection of those in their custody.
Sources said some arrests had been made in connection with the egg attack on Trinamool MLA Ghosh.
Several human rights activists have spoken out against the nuisance.
“The basic cardinal principle of the justice system is that the accused is to be presumed innocent till proven guilty. Footage on channels show that some people in almost every incident stand ready with eggs in the presence of the police. The police never tried to disperse them. These organised attacks have destroyed the basic norm of the rule of law,” rights activist Sujato Bhadra told The Telegraph.
“Instead, under the garb of public outrage, these uninterrupted organised attacks strip the society of its humane face and debase civility,” he added.
Several police officers this newspaper spoke to on Tuesday said it was “public outrage” that had been bottled up for years and efforts to thwart them on the spot “could lead to law and order problems”.
“However, if there is a court directive, we will follow that,” said a senior officer of the Bengal police.
Samik warning
State BJP president Samik Bhattacharya on Tuesday urged participants at a meeting of the BJP’s teachers’ cell to protest if anyone throws eggs at any person, saying such behaviour was not part of Bengal’s culture.
“I request you to protest and resist those who are hurling eggs at any person,” he said, claiming that those who joined the BJP after the May 4 poll results were behind the menace. “This is not the first time. I have repeatedly said that throwing eggs cannot be accepted in a civil society. This practice should be stopped,” Bhattacharya told reporters after the event.