Tagore defacement triggers sedition case

DHAKA: Police arrested four people on sedition charges in Bangladesh’s capital on Sunday over allegations they had defaced a portrait of the Nobel laureate and writer Rabindranath Tagore.

The four people detained were accused of smearing black ink over the painting of the late poet on Saturday, just a week after it was painted on the walls of a prominent fine arts institution as part of Dhaka’s urban beautification project.

“They have been arrested on charges of sedition,” senior police officer Sheikh Zahidul Islam told AFP. The offence carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in Bangladesh.

The suspects had sought to “create instability in society and incite religious unrest”, he said.

Police said those arrested belonged to the Rashtra Sanglap Forum, a nationalist group that has campaigned against what it describes as Indian influence in Bangladesh.

Tagore, who won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote Bangladesh’s national anthem, “Amar Sonar Bangla” but his legacy has come under scrutiny in Bangladesh in recent years due to his perceived ties to India.

Following the 2024 student-led uprising that toppled former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, some activists called for Bangladesh to replace the anthem.

Dhaka’s ties with New Delhi have nosedived since Hasina sought refuge in India after fleeing Bangladesh.

Tagore, who died in 1941, was born in the Indian city of Calcutta — now known as Kolkata — under British rule and was close to the country’s independence leader Mahatma Gandhi. – AFP