West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Friday requested newspaper Anandabazar Patrika to apologise for utilizing the phrase “saffron hooliganism” in its headline to explain the August 20 conflict between scholar teams at Jadavpur College.
“I’ll ask a information outlet in West Bengal to do political campaigns, political criticism,” Adhikari mentioned at an occasion to mark the Hindu pageant Raksha Bandhan. “However don’t assault saffron. The end result shall be horrible. You will be unable to deal with the horrible penalties.”
Adhikari added: “Apologise inside 24 hours. Print it on the primary web page…the writing was unsuitable. In any other case, there shall be a protest by these carrying saffron.”
The chief minister didn’t identify Anandabazar Patrika in his speech. Nonetheless, the feedback got here amid criticism of the newspaper by Bharatiya Janata Occasion leaders.
On Thursday, a complaint was filed with the police looking for a primary data report towards the editorial staff of Anandabazar Patrika over the newspaper having used “gerua gundami”, or saffron hooliganism, on its entrance web page, The Wire reported.
The complainant filed by non secular chief Sanjay Shastri Maharaj demanded that motion be taken towards two journalists working with the newspaper.
The color saffron is a non secular image to Hindus and never a political one, The Wire quoted the complainant as having acknowledged. Linking the color to “hooliganism” went “past criticism of any explicit political organisation or ideology”, and damage the non secular sentiments of “crores of Hindus”, he alleged.
The complainant requested the police to search out out “who proposed the expression, who permitted it, who was concerned in modifying the report and figuring out the headline, and whether or not any of the individuals involved had the intention or information that such wording may trigger harm to non secular sentiments”, The Wire reported on Saturday.
The criticism didn’t cite any authorized provisions below which the FIR may very well be filed. It’s unclear if the police have acted on the criticism.
On August 20, a clash broke out between members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and Left-affiliated scholar teams at Kolkata’s Jadavpur College throughout a normal assembly of the School of Engineering and Expertise College students’ Union.
The conflict continued into the early hours of Thursday. The 2 sides blamed one another for the violence and accused the opposite of bringing folks from outdoors the college onto the campus.
A number of college students were injured and brought to a hospital.
The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad is the scholar wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the dad or mum organisation of the BJP.
Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Anamika Pathak.
