An assistant professor at the department of pharmacology in the state-run Agartala Authorities Medical School has been suspended for his social media posts against Citizenship Bill and criticising Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb.
According to local media reports, Dr Kaushik Chakraborty was issued a show-cause notice by the Health and Family Welfare Department on August. The charges against Chakraborty are, obliquely criticising chief minister of Tripura despite being a government servant, posting objectionable remarks on the social media against the Citizenship Amendment Bill. Chakraborty has been previously punished as well for questioning the CPI(M) government’s policies which ruled Tripura before the BJP came to power.
Dr Chakraborty, also the officer on special duty in the Directorate of Medical Education, replied to the notice on August 19, stating that he would not be able to respond to the allegations “unless I (he) get (s) the copy (s) of the said remarks”.
On August 31 the government served Chakraborty was served a second notice with screenshots of the comments that displeased the Chief Minister. Three tweets were taken as an offence by Biswas from the doctor. While one of them, posted on February 10, was showing his support to Pradyot Manikya Debbarman, the then state Congress chief, for opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, two others were in Bengali, posted early this year.
When translated into English, one of his tweets read, “Dear Biplab da, and there, there is no Nobel Prize for speaking nonsense! You are in a respected position and don’t become a laughing stock for the rest of India. This government has come after a lot of struggle and the people of Tripura have a lot of hope from it. Don’t disappoint us all.”
The tweet came after CM Biplab Deb made headlines for his bizarre statements. In one of his statements, Deb claimed that the internet existed during Mahabharata while in other he suggested the graduate youth should purchase a cow and milk them to earn Rs 10 lakh in 10 years.
After the government pointed out his tweets, the doctor replied to the state authorities on September 11. He stated that the comments were personal and not made as a public servant but in the “capacity as a free citizen of a free country”.
He also added that if those comments caused “any harm to anybody, it was unintentional” and tendered an unconditional apology for it. He also sought closure of the matter as he would be more careful the next time while making comments on social media even in his capacity.
On October 19, 2019, in another order, the under-secretary to the Tripura government told Chakraborty not to leave Agartala without permission from the competent authority.
