Human rights defender, Mr Gopen Chandra Sharma, has been subjected to a series of threats via mobile telephone calls and picture and text messages from 22-24 August 2009. Gopen Chandra Sharma is the district human rights monitor for the Murshidabad region of Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM). His work focuses on the documentation of human rights abuses, in particular human trafficking on the Indo-Bangladesh border.

Further Information

On 22 August 2009, at 7:04 am, a call was made to Gopen Chandra Sharma's mobile phone from a number that has been reported to the authorities. A friend answered the call and reported that the caller threatened to kill Gopen Chandra Sharma.

The human rights defender's uncle then returned the call, however the person who answered denied having made any calls and instead accused Gopen Chandra Sharma of having called and made threats.

Within the first phone conversation, the caller referred back to a case in 1995 when a Muslim woman, Ms Manoara Bibi, was killed by members of her husband's family. Gopen Chandra Sharma had assisted the woman's father in filing a complaint before the criminal court, following which the body was exhumed and another postmortem examination was carried out.

The result led to the prosecution and conviction of the perpetrators who were sentenced to between 5 and 10 years imprisonment. Gopen Chandra Sharma was a prosecution witness in the trial.

On the same day, at 7:18 am, the person called again and asked Gopen Chandra Sharma as to his whereabouts. For his own security, he gave the caller a false location but the caller responded saying, “You are sitting on a red chair at the courtyard of your uncle’s residence at the Kantabari village and writing something,” indicating that the caller was watching Gopen Chandra Sharma. When asked for his name, the caller responded that he is “Milan from Jalangi area.”

At approximately 5:30 pm Gopen Chandra Sharma left his uncle's home and while on the way to Bahrampur by bus he received a third call at 6.00 pm from the same mobile number. The caller again threatened him by saying ‘this time you are able to escape but nobody can save you’.

During the conversation he also verbally abused Gopen Chandra Sharma. At approximately 7:00 pm, while Gopen Chandra Sharma was in Sirajbagh with a photographer from the Doordarshan, Mr Soubrata Ghosh, he received an obscene photo MMS (photo message) with written remarks about his younger daughter and his wife. He continued to receive these obscene messages throughout the night.

On 23 August 2009, Gopen Chandra Sharma received further abusive calls from the same mobile number at 2:31 pm, 2:44 pm, 5:14 pm and 5:15 pm. The Superintendent of Police, Mr Murshidabad; the Sub Divisional Police Officer, Mr Domkal and; other senior officers were informed about those phone calls. Furthermore he informed the Officer-in-Charge of Jalangi Police Station, the Sub Divisional Police Officer of Domkal and Mr. Somnath Singh, Assistant Sub Inspector of Jalangi Police Station of the telephone threats.

Front Line believes that the threats against Gopen Chandra Sharma are directly linked to his legitimate human rights activities, and is concerned for his physical and psychological security.