KOLKATA: A hardline Hindu group has filed a police complaint against aspiring Bengali poet Srijato Bandopadhyay (42) for a poem hurting Hindu religious sentiments and criticising Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Following this, a First Information Report (FIR) has been booked against Bandopadhyay, who is based in Siliguri.
The complainant, 20-year-old Arnab Sarkar — a member of the group Hindu Samhati — mentioned in his complaint that the last line of the poem hurts Hindu sentiments.
The controversial last line of the 12-line poem titled Curse, posted by Bandopadhyay on Facebook on March 19 — the day Yogi Adityanath was sworn as UP Chief Minister — reads: ‘As long as women are raped after being excavated from their graves, condoms should be worn on Trishuls’. His indirect reference sought to highlight a diktat by one of Adityanath’s men to rape dead Muslim women by digging up their graves. The complainant mentioned that the holy Hindu weapon Trishul has been insulted in the poem.
“The case against poet Srijato Bandopadhyay was booked in the Siliguri Cyber Crime Police Station. However, police officers said they won’t be able to take the case forward due to restrictions imposed by Facebook,” Arnab Sarkar told New Indian Express. The second year accountancy student of Bagdogra College indicated that he may move the local court.
Though Sarkar is an active member of Hindu Samhati, he claimed that he filed the complaint on his own.
Curse had garnered around 4,600 likes, 801 shares and 1,800 comments until Tuesday afternoon. While criticism flooded the comments section, litterateurs from across Bengal shared their own poems against religious extremism and supported Bandopadhyay.
The poem also compares Yogi Adityanath with a disease that must be contained before it becomes endemic. It says that every election pushes Indians a century behind and women are victims of violence even after death. The poet compares Muslim women with deer, whose flesh is sought even after death.
Bandopadhyay could not be contacted as his cellphone was switched off. He also did not respond on Facebook.