Exclusive! Kamaleswar Mukherjee on the arrest: Those friends in Tollywood who kept silent are also speaking up

Several members from the Tollywood fraternity, including, Aparna Sen, Srijit Mukherji, Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, Abir Chatterjee, Ritwick Chakraborty, Kaushik Ganguly, Churni Ganguly, Kaushik Sen, Riddhi Sen, and others, took to their social media handle to denounce the detention of director-actor Kamaleswar Mukherjee. Kamaleswar, along with seven more people, was arrested on Ashtami when they gathered to protest against an incident of bookstall vandalism that took place on Saptami in the Rashbehari area.

Kamaleswar, who is known to be left inclined, took part in a protest gathering after a mob, allegedly the supporters of the ruling party, vandalised a book stall hosted by CPIM over an anti-corruption slogan. Talking exclusively to OTTPlay, he said, “I am grateful to every friend, colleague, who spoke up. Besides, a lot of my friends from the industry called me personally to express their solidarity. I am really grateful.” 

A large group of the Bengali film industry is known to be close to the ruling party. Addressing this, Kamaleswar said, “Those friends in Tollywood who kept silent about the atrocities are also speaking up now. There is a threshold and undemocratic activities have crossed their limit.” Talking about his arrest, he said, “Those who vandalised were left free and those who protested vandalism got arrested. Along with me, a few more people got arrested and all of them were resisting the vandalism. This is very undemocratic, according to me.”

Meanwhile, soon after the arrest, a number of Tollywood celebrities took to their social media and condemned the incident. Eminent filmmaker-actress Aparna Sen wrote, “To be arrested for protesting against vandalising a bookshop!!! Has the world around us gone stark raving mad? I do not have enough words to condemn this heinous action! Very well, arrest us all then! For we stand in solidarity with Kamaleshwar Mukherjee.”

Srijit was one of the first people to react. “Afraid of books? Books? Don’t have enough words of condemnation for the arrest of Dr Kamaleswar Mukherjee. With you, Kamalda, for whatever it is worth,” he wrote. 

Abir Chatterjee, who worked with Kamaleswar in Karnasubarner Guptodhon, wrote, “We love you Kamal Da and we are proud of you. With you…”

Ritwick posted a two-liner poem protesting the incident. 

Pink-director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury wrote, “The arrest of Filmmaker Dr Kamaleshwar Mukherjee and others is shameful! And for what reason? For putting up a bookstall. With you Kamal!”  

National Award-winning actor Riddhi Sen said, “Has this government gone insane? The arrest of Kamaleswar Mukherjee is SHAMEFUL. For what? For a bookstall? For supporting a protest against the plunder of a ‘bookstall ‘? This is shameful. Strongly condemn this immensely meaningless and obnoxious act of flexing muscle power. With you Kamleshwar Mukherjee, we all need an answer for this!”