Court to control protests in Bengal in case of vandalism of public property: Calcutta HC

Highlights

A single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court, on Tuesday, observed that the court might in future enforce control over protests and demonstrations in case those programmes involve destruction of public property and assault of government staff and officials.

Kolkata: A single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court, on Tuesday, observed that the court might in future enforce control over protests and demonstrations in case those programmes involve destruction of public property and assault of government staff and officials.

On Tuesday, the single-judge bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh made this observation while giving permission to an independent agency to carry out a demonstration at Rani Rashmoni Road in central Kolkata on December 5 to protest against the attack and atrocities over minority Hindus in Bangladesh.

While granting the permission, Justice Ghosh made it clear that in case if there is any instance of destruction of public property or assault of government staff or officials during the demonstration, the court might enforce control over such demonstrations in future.

Justice Ghosh also observed that such unfortunate events during demonstrations are often conducted to seek public attention and the court under no circumstance will tolerate that.

The scheduled protest rally is supposed to have a gathering of 2,500 individuals. Since the venue of the demonstration is under the jurisdiction of the Eastern Command of the Indian Army, the organising body had sought permission from the Army and also the Kolkata Police.

The city police have already clarified that in case permission from the Army is available they will have no objection to the programme. Thereafter the Calcutta High Court gave the permission for the same but with a word of caution.

During the last few days, there have been several protests and rallies in different parts of West Bengal over the attacks and atrocities against minority Hindus in neighbouring Bangladesh as well as the arrests of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) monks there.

On Tuesday, the leader of the opposition in the West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari said it is high time that the Hindus in India, irrespective of their political ideologies, get united against the attack on minority Hindus in Bangladesh.