The civil society members, which include educationists, art and culture personalities, lawyers, former bureaucrats and doctors, lashed out at both the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre and the Mamata Banerjee-led state administration, holding them "equally responsible" for the repeated attacks on citizens' fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
"Our state government has special 'fame' on this count. The intolerance exhibited by the Trinamool Congress regime towards freedom of speech and expression during its eight years in office cannot be ignored. The latest instance is the illegal, inhuman and cowardly custodial torture of political commentator Sanmoy Bandopadhyay after his arrest," they said in a statement.
Iterating that the allegations against Bandopadhyay were not clear, the statement said: "It is being heard that he has made defamatory comments about the Chief Minister, her nephew and the Education Minister.
"If anybody is defamed following utterances of the opposition in a democracy, then the administration has the right to take the requisite and reasonable action.
"But these people neither served Bandopadhyay a legal notice, nor filed a defamation petition in court. Other persons filed complaints in various police stations of Purulia district, and on that basis he was arrested.
"Not only that, Trinamool-backed miscreants accompanied the police in taking him to the police station where he was inhumanly tortured. This action is totally anti-Constitutional... Such actions have no place in a democracy. We demand punishment of those involved in the act."
Among the 31 signatories to the statement were film directors Aparna Sen and Tarun Majumdar, fomer Principal of Presidency College Amol Mukherjee, former Vice Chancellors Pabitra Sarkar, Alok Banerjee, Dipak Bagchi, Ranju Gopal Mukherjee, retired bureaucrats Ardhendu Sen and Sukh Bilas Verma, lawyers Arunabha Ghosh and Bikash Bhattacharya and actor Badsha Moitra.
Former Supreme Court judge Ashok Kumar Ganguly, distinguished artists Wasim Kapoor, Dipali Bhattacharya and theatre personalities Koushik Sen and Chandan Sen also signed the statement.
Bandopadhyay was taken away by the police from his Agarpara residence in North 24 Parganas district last month and was allegedly tortured in Khardah police station before being taken to Purulia on various charges, including forgery, defamation and intent to provoke breach of peace.
( With inputs from IANS )