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Kolkata Police arrested Garga Chatterjee, a leader of ‘Bangla Pokkho’, for allegedly spreading misinformation about EVMs during the Assembly elections. The arrest followed a complaint from the District Election Officer after Chatterjee failed to appear for questioning.
Who is Garga Chatterjee? ‘Bangla Pokkho’ leader held over EVM misinformation row (Image: @ANI/X)Kolkata Police on Tuesday arrested Garga Chatterjee, a leader of a pro-Bengali advocacy organisation "Bangla Pokkho” on charges of allegedly circulating misleading information about Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during the recently held Assembly elections.
According to a senior police official, the case is based primarily on social media posts shared by Chatterjee on polling day, in which he raised doubts about the functioning of EVMs and questioned the credibility of the election process, reported PTI.
While speaking to reporters at Lalbazar, Kolkata Police Commissioner Ajay Nand stated, “The complaint against him was lodged by the District Election Officer (DEO) of Kolkata North, following which the cyber cell initiated action. He was summoned twice in connection with the matter, but he did not appear, and that is the reason he was arrested today.”
He is expected to be produced before a court on Wednesday, as per the report citing sources.
Who is Garga Chatterjee?
Garga Chatterjee is an academic whose research spans multiple disciplines, with a particular focus on spatial perception and earned his MBBS degree from Medical College, University of Calcutta before completing a PhD at Harvard University in the Cognition, Brain and Behavior programme at the Vision Sciences Laboratory led by Ken Nakayama, according to the website of Bengal Institute, a Dhaka-based “unique, transdisciplinary forum for the study and design of the environment”.
He later reportedly conducted postdoctoral research at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the laboratory of Pawan Sinha from 2011 to 2014. Between 2012 and 2013, he also served as a lecturer at Lesley University, it said, adding since 2015, Chatterjee has been a faculty member at the Indian Statistical Institute. He is also reportedly a regular columnist for several newspapers.
What exactly happened?
According to a police officer, Garga Chatterjee first raised concerns about alleged EVM malfunctions on April 23, during the first phase of polling, when voting reportedly began late at several booths because of technical issues.
In a Facebook post, Chatterjee questioned how EVMs could develop faults in the morning after being tested the previous night. He also urged voters to check their VVPAT slips carefully before leaving polling stations after casting their ballots.
Police said that on May 4, the day votes were counted, Chatterjee again criticised the Election Commission of India on social media, alleging that the poll body was executing a “secret plan".
A police officer said Chatterjee was arrested following specific complaints accusing him of spreading misinformation and creating confusion about the electoral process.
(With inputs from PTI)
About the Author
Garvit Bhirani
Garvit Bhirani is a journalist based in Gurugram. He is a Deputy Chief Content Producer at LiveMint, where he covers national and international news stories, focusing on accuracy and compelling storytelling for readers. <br><br> With a total of six years of experience in journalism, he has previously worked with Vaco Binary Semantics for Google, taking on the role of news curation lead, and reported from the field on health, education, and agriculture stories for 101reporters and News9. He has also served as a content editor for entertainment and news media organisations. <br><br> Garvit holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism and mass communication from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and Gurugram University, respectively. During college days, he joined India’s only non-profit student journalism network, where he anchored daily news updates and produced his own weekly show called ‘Data Fix’. <br><br> He was selected for the YES Foundation Media for Social Change Fellowship in Delhi, the Talking Data to the Fourth Pillar residential workshop, and the VOICE Fellowship in Pune. <br><br> He holds certificates in COVID-19-verification reporting, data journalism, food & agriculture, tech policy, media literacy and countering misinformation, and tackling election disinformation courses from Thomson Foundation, IndiaSpend, The Dialogue, US Mission in India, and AFP. <br><br> He can be reached on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/garvit-bhirani">LinkedIn</a> or on <a href="https://x.com/GarvitBhirani">@garvitbhirani</a> on X
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