A day after the BJP accused her of threatening doctors protesting against a medico’s rape and murder of a Kolkata hospital, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee slammed a “malicious disinformation campaign” unleased against her.

“Let me most emphatically clarify that I have not uttered a single word against the (medical etc.) students or their movements. I totally support their movement. Their movement is genuine. I never threatened them, as some people are accusing me of doing. This allegation is completely false,” she said in a post on X.

I detect a malicious disinformation campaign in some print, electronic and digital media which has been unleashed with reference to a speech that I made in our students’ programme yesterday.

Let me most emphatically clarify that I have not uttered a single word against the…

— Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) August 29, 2024

“I have spoken against BJP. I have spoken against them because, with the support of the Government of India, they are threatening the democracy in our State and trying to create anarchy. With support from Centre, they are trying to create lawlessness and I have raised my voice against them,” she added.

Addressing the foundation day event of Trinamool Congress’s students’ wing, the Trinamool leader had urged doctors protesting against the August 9 incident at RG Kar Medical College. While doctors in most parts of the country have returned to work after the Supreme Court set up a National Task Force to recommend steps to ensure doctors’ safety on duty, those in Kolkata are still protesting in demand of justice for the victim.

Addressing them, the Chief Minister yesterday said, “We did not act against you after you protested because I understand you are upset. But please join work gradually. Supreme Court has said that the state government can now take action. I don’t want to take action because I want them to study properly. If get an FIR registered, their future will be destroyed, they won’t get a chance anywhere, they won’t get passports and visas. If I take legal action, their lives will be destroyed. I don’t want that, our government has a human outlook, we want to create more doctors with this human outlook.”

READ: “Where Is Justice”: Mamata Banerjee’s Question To CBI In Doctor Rape-Murder

She also questioned why the CBI was yet to make a breakthrough in the case even after 16 days of taking over the investigation from Kolkata Police following a court order. 

Last evening, BJP’s Sudhanshu Trivedi told the media that the Chief Minister had threatened doctors with word play.

“After misleading the probe, destroying evidence and shielding accused, a new strategy to threaten doctors has emerged. Heed the Chief Minister’s words. She says she doesn’t want to register FIRs (against doctors) so that careers are not destroyed. Mamata Banerjee has threatened doctors with word play,” he said.

READ: Mamata Banerjee Threatening Protesting Doctors With Word Play, Alleges BJP

The protesting doctors responded that their movement won’t stop. Authorities at the RG Kar Medical College informed that all their services are functioning.

The Chief Minister also clarified the use of the phrase “phonsh kora”, which prompted state BJP chief and Union Minister Sukanta Majumdar to shoot off a letter to Home Minister Amit Shah.

Addressing the party event yesterday, she invoked an anecdote by mystic and social reformer Ramakrishna Paramhansa. “Once, a snake went to Ramakrishna Paramhansa and said, ‘You have asked me not to bite, but when I don’t, people they hit me with stones.’ Ramakrishna replied, ‘I have asked you not to bite, but I have stopped you from hissing and scaring them’.”

“Your work in the coming days is to unmask conspirators and scare them,” she added.

Referring to the remarks, Mr Majumdar wrote that the Chief Minister had “shamelessly incited the gathering”. “This is nothing less than a blatant endorsement of revenge politics from the highest office in the state,” he said.

In her note today, Ms Banerjee said, “I also clarify that the phrase (‘phonsh kara’) that I had used in my speech yesterday is a quote from Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa. The legendary saint had said that occasionally there is need to raise one’s voice. When there are crimes and criminal offences, voice of protest has to be raised. My speech on that point was a direct allusion to the great Ramakrishnite saying.”

Gautam Adani and his family have secured the top spot in the 2024 Hurun India Rich List, with a wealth of Rs 11.6 lakh crore, surpassing Mukesh Ambani.

Mr Ambani, with a wealth of Rs 10.14 lakh crore, secured the second position on the list. The wealth calculations presented are based on the snapshot taken on July 31, 2024.

The report highlights that the number of billionaires in the country has reached a record 334, The Times of India reported.

Anas Rahman Junaid, Founder and Chief Researcher of Hurun India, said the country is “emerging as Asia’s wealth creation engine!” 

He stated that India experienced a 29% increase, even when China witnessed a 25% decline in its number of billionaires.

Following Mr Adani and Mr Ambani on the list is HCL Technologies’ Shiv Nadar and family in the third place, with a total wealth of Rs 3.14 lakh crore.

On the fourth and fifth positions were Cyrus S Poonawalla and the family of Serum Institute of India (SII) (Rs 2.89 lakh crore) and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries’ Dilip Shanghvi (Rs 2.49 crore).

The report further highlights that India produced a billionaire every five days last year. In 2023, the country had 259 billionaires.

The cases against Mukesh and Jayasurya are among nearly two dozen filed by the police since a flood of sexual assault claims against senior Malayalam actors. The allegations followed the release of a report by a committee inquiring into sexual abuse in the industry.
Mukesh – who has also been dropped from a state government panel to formulate cinema-related policies – has denied Ms Muneer’s allegation. In a Facebook post this week he accused her of blackmail, saying she approached him in 2009 and then in 2022, when she asked for “at least Rs 1 lakh”. “But I am not ready to surrender…” he declared.
Two others accused by Ms Muneer – M Maniyanpilla Raju and Edavela Babu – have also been charged with rape, by police in Fort Kochi and Ernakulam (North), according to reports from Kerala. Ms Muneer had accused Babu of assault in exchange for membership in AMMA, a Malayalam actors’ film body. M Raju blamed “vested interests”.
Filmmaker Ranjith Balakrishnan was the first to be charged in this wave of #MeToo cases; he was charged with sexual assault. Balakrishnan, who quit as Chairman of the state-run Kerala Chalachitra Academy, has been accused of assaulting Bengali actor Sreelekha Mitra at his Kochi home in 2009, and sexually abusing a male actor in 2012.
“Everyone knows about it (the sexual abuse and exploitation of women). It’s not new… in this industry, it is rampant. The problem is it has been normalised,” Ms Mitra told NDTV.
Baburaj, an award-winning actor, has been accused of rape by a junior actor who wishes to remain anonymous at this time. She told NDTV she too was lured to the senior actor’s home, on the pretext of a film role, and then raped. Baburaj has denied the charge.
Also on Sunday another prominent actor – Siddique – quit as General Secretary of AMMA, or the Association of Malayalam Movie Actors, after actor Revathy Sampath said he raped her in a hotel room in 2016. Siddique has since filed a counter-complaint.
Senior actor Mohanlal on Tuesday quit as President of AMMA. Several members of the actors’ body’s executive committee also quit claiming “moral responsibility… in light of allegations made by some actors against some of the committee”.
Actor and film producer Sandra Thomas told News18 she had been humiliated in front of the Kerala Film Producers’ Association after demanding better working conditions for women. “I stood there… facing prying eyes and smirks…” she said.
Meanwhile, in Bengal, where violent protests have taken place over the rape and murder of a doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Hospital, women actors have urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to set up a panel to probe similar claims. 100 women, associated with the Women’s Forum for Screen Workers, have demanded safety at the workplace.

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