The West Bengal government has moved the Supreme Court challenging an order of the Calcutta High Court directing the Kolkata Police to release Sayan Lahiri, one of the convenors of the Nabanna Abhijan (March to Secretariat) held on August 27. The march was held against the rape and murder of a junior doctor at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata earlier this month.
However, the single-judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha of the Calcutta High Court ordered the release of Lahiri on Friday and said that no coercive action could be taken against him, not only in relation to the Nabanna Abhijan but over any other police cases against him.
While the state government had allowed Lahiri to walk free on Saturday afternoon in deference to the order of the Calcutta High Court, it has now approached the Supreme Court for a stay of this order in a bid to re-arrest Lahiri.
In the petition filed before the Calcutta High Court on Friday, Lahiri's counsel had accused the city police of arresting him on false charges. The petition was heard on an emergency basis.
Upon his release on Saturday, Lahiri vowed to continue protesting until justice is delivered in the R.G. Kar case and all those arrested in connection with Nabanna Abhijan are released.
Lahiri was arrested this week outside the office of a vernacular news channel, where he was scheduled to participate in a panel discussion on the R.G. Kar issue and the Nabanna Abhijan.
The High Court, however, asked the police to release him by 2 pm on Saturday, rejecting the argument of the state government's counsel that Lahiri was a "highly influential" person.
The protest by Nabanna Abhijan on August 27 turned partial areas of Kolkata and Howrah into virtual battlefields in a clash between the police and protesters. The police resorted to lathi-charge, fired teargas shells and used water cannons to disperse the protesters who were marching towards the state Secretariat in the Mandirtala area of Howrah district, adjoining Kolkata.
A total of 220 arrests were made in relation to the protest, besides 25 preventive detentions before the march.
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