Soumitra Chatterjee urges anti-amended citizenship law agitators not to resort to violence

Kolkata, Dec 16: Legendary Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee on Monday appealed to people not to resort to violence while protesting the amended citizenship law.

His appeal comes amid pitched protests against the amended Citizenship Act in several districts of West Bengal, during which agitators set fire to railway properties and torched buses on national highways.

The Dada Saheb Phalke Award recipient told PTI that though he does not understand much about politics, it is pertinent to ask why so many people are protesting the Act vehemently.

"What I gather (from news reports) is that this Act will oppress a large section of the people of this country," he said on the sidelines of the promotion of a Bengali film in which he is the protagonist.

On the violent protests across the state, he said, "When people get angry, they do many things.

Causing people to get enraged could have been avoided. I urge the agitators not to resort to violence while protesting the Act. Otherwise, we do not know where the situation could lead to."

Filmmaker Aparna Sen and several other Bengali intellectuals had earlier said vandalising public property was not the right way to protest. "A movement at times takes extreme proportions when people get carried away, but this is not the right way to protest," Sen had said on Saturday.

The filmmaker had said people should not set fire to public properties of the state to protest a decision taken by the Centre.

A group of intellectuals, considered close to the ruling Trinamool Congress, had also urged agitators not to resort to violence while protesting the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the amended Citizenship Act.

Painter Subhaprasanna, poets Joy Goswami and Subodh Sarkar, Indologist Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri had urged people to protest democratically.