Polish student gets notice to leave India
Till Friday, when I left my office, I had not received any official info about this from the student or the FRRO. SURANJAN DAS , JU vice-chancellor
KOLKATA: A Polish student at Jadavpur University (JU) in Kolkata has been asked to leave India in a notice sent to him by the Union home ministry. Some students and teachers at JU said Kamil Siedcynski may have been expelled due to his presence at a rally organised in the city by intellectuals, artists and students against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in December.
Siedcynski avoided the media and didn’t share the contents of the notice. A student of comparative literature, he is yet to complete the final semester of his Master’s degree. Having studied Bengali literature at Visva Bharati, a central university, Siedcynski can speak the language fluently and has translated Polish works into Bengali.
JU teachers, who did not wish to be named, said Siedcynski attended the rally organised at Ramlila Maidan with his friends on December 19.
He was served a notice by the Foreigner Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in Kolkata about a week ago, said Partha Pratim Roy, general secretary of the JU Teachersa association. “Kamil has appealed to the FRRO to reconsider its decision, saying he was a merely an onlooker,” Roy added.
JU vice-chancellor Suranjan Das was away in Delhi. “Till Friday evening, when I left my office, I had not received any official information about this from the student or the FRRO.”
Siedcynski is the second foreign student in West Bengal to be asked to leave India by the FRRO.
Afsara Anika Meem, a firstyear Bangladeshi undergraduate student at the Visva Bharati fine arts department, had been served a similar notice for engaging in “anti-government” activities earlier this week. She had posted photos of an anti-caa agitation on her social media page, which she later deactivated.
“Kamil was possibly curious to see the rally. Kamil has never been seen at any agitation on or off campus. Being a foreigner, he drew the attention of some local television channels that covered the rally. Since he speaks Bengali, a journalist even spoke to him and the short footage was aired,” said a JU professor who did not want to be identified.
Teachers said Siedcynski was first summoned by the FRRO, but he could not respond because he was visiting Visva Bharati. After returning to the city, he went to the FRRO, where the notice to leave the country was given to him. Being a Saturday, the Polish consulate in Kolkata and the FRRO office were closed and no official could be contacted.
Lawyer and former Kolkata mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said, “This is madness. How can a student from a foreign country be asked to leave just because he wanted to witness a rally. The student has the right to move court and if he wants I will defend him.”
KOLKATA: The office of West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has issued a letter to the ruling Trinamool Congress government, seeking information about the money spent on the advertisement campaign against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the authorities who sanctioned it.
The advertisement with the tagline “No CAA, No NRC” featured chief minister Mamata Banerjee, and appeared in print and visual media between December 2019 and January 2020. The February 4 letter, addressed to the principal secretary of information and cultural affairs department Vivek Kumar sought “names and details of the officials seen in the advertisements”.
“The advertisement is a political agenda of the ruling party in the state and violation of law,” special secretary to the governor, Kumarjib Chakraborty, wrote in the letter quoting Dhankhar.
The advertisements were stopped by a stay order from the Calcutta high court, it added.
A senior Raj Bhawan official said no reply was received from the government till late on Saturday. A senior TMC leader said: “The governor has been trying to interfere in matters of the state government. This is completely absurd that he is seeking details (on the alleged misuse of public funds),” news agency PTI quoted the TMC leader as saying.
Later in the day, Dhankhar said he was “astonished” that he hasn’t received a reply yet. “Despite having a meeting with CM Mamata Banerjee and senior minister Partha Chatterjee, I am yet to get a reply...,” he said.