Author arrested for penning on 'Kandhamal violence'

Penning a book on 'Kandhamal violence' landed an author in trouble after police arrested him on charges of writing and publishing "inflammatory" material that could cause "communal unrest".

Lenin Kumar was a man with a mission. A hardware engineer, also editor of a quarterly Oriya magazine, Nishan, he says, he wrote the book to condemn the recent violence on Christians in Orissa's Kandhamal district.

He was arrested under sections 295 and 1539(A) of the Indian Penal Code for his book Dharma Nare Kandhamalare Raktara Banya (Bloodletting in Kandhamal in the name of religion).

In addition, two others who helped him print and circulate the book have also been arrested and their bail pleas rejected along with Lenin's by the sub-divisional judicial magistrate. Police seized at least 700 copies of the book and press sealed.

According to the police, pages 28 to 41 of the 80-page booklet contain most of the "objectionable" material. Quoted in these pages are parts from a piece written by CPI leader D Raja and first published in the June 18-24, 2000, issue of the party's mouthpiece New Age.

Police alleged that the published writing, accused the RSS and other saffron outfits who exhorts its followers to store firearms for use in riots, coerces Dalit Christians to chant 'Shri Ram' and 'Om' and forces Dalit, Muslim and Christian girls into prostitution.

Lenin's wife, Rumita Kundu, meanwhile alleged that the police tortured her husband while in custody. Following this, there has been outrage, anger and fear among civil right activists, writers and journalists who organized a protest march to Raj Bhawan on Thursday.

After the court's rejection of the bail applications, Lawyer Biswapriya Kanungo, slammed the arrest as violation of the fundamental right to freedom of speech. "The arrest is nothing but an infringement on the creativity of a writer," he said.

"Everybody has the right to express their thoughts. It is an attempt by the government to suppress writers who have independent voices," writer and columnist Bibhuti Patnaik said.

"It is a move to curb free, frank and fearless speech of writers and journalists." added civil rights activist Sudhir Patnaik.

The Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), journalist associations and writers associations across the state has also issued a statement condemning the arrest of Lenin.