Kolkata: Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen on Sunday said that he will move the court, if the need arises, to fend off the charge that he owns illegal land on Visva Bharati university campus. The central university has listed him as one of the illegal squatters on the campus.
Sen, whose entire family was close to another Nobel recipient and literary giant of Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore, has said in a statement that the land he owns was given on a long-term lease that was nowhere close to expiry.
(Sen, born in 1933, was named Amartya by Tagore. On the campus, several plots were given to many eminent persons on 99-year lease since the time of Tagore. Sen grew up in Pratichi, the house built by his father in Santiniketan, and visits it frequently. In May 1951, Visva Bharati was declared a central university and an institution of national importance by an act of Parliament.)
The university claims that Sen has reportedly occupied 13 decimals of land, in addition to the 125 decimals of legally leased land given to his father by the university.
Meanwhile, members of the intelligentsia hit the streets on Sunday, rooting for Noble Laureate Amartya Sen and claimed that the BJP-led Central government is against Bengalis and Bengali culture.
Former TMC MP and a singer Kabir Suman said that the BJP government is leaving no stones unturned to insult the Bengalis and also that the leaders of saffron camp have no respect for West Bengal.
“The BJP wants to form the state government in Bengal but their only agenda is to insult the Bengalis and the culture of the state. They don’t even have any respect for Nobel Laureates,” mentioned Suman.
Slamming Bidyut Chakraborty, vice chancellor of Visva Bharati University, Left Front leader Biman Bose said it is clear that the VC has become a stooge of the saffron camp and urged the ruling Trinamool Congress to take necessary action to avoid further confusion.
Expressing solidarity, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had written a letter to Amartya Sen highlighting Sen’s deep ancestral roots in Santiniketan.
