Nonadanga eviction: Scientist gets bail

Internationally acclaimed scientist Partha Sarathi Roy who was arrested during an anti-eviction protest at Nonadanga in Kolkata was granted bail.

Eminent persons of international stature, including well-known US-based academician-intellectual Noam Chomsky and National Advisory Council member Aruna Roy on Monday wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding the release of Roy.

They wrote in their letter to Manmohan Singh that it was a clear violation of freedom of speech and all conceivable rights of an individual due to illegal action by the state police. “The state administration has issued public statements in both print and electronic media in support of this barbaric act,” said the letter written by Roy and signed by 55 academicians based out of India and abroad.

Police had booked Dr Roy under section 353 (assault on public servant), section 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to public servant), section 141 (unlawful assembly), section 143 (punishment) and section 149 (common objective of disruption) of the IPC.

But, other six persons including the secretary of Matangini Mahila Samity Debolina Chakraborty were not granted bail and remanded jail custody till 26th April.
 
Roy, a former student of the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, and a faculty of Kolkata's Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), was arrested along with six others while participating in a peaceful protest against the eviction of slum dwellers of Nonandanga, Kolkata on April 12.