A young photographer from West Bengal, who planned a fun-filled trip to Nepal in November 2021, had the worst trip as he ended up in prison for allegedly carrying jpeg image printouts of $100 notes. Durlav Roy Chowdhury from Howrah, West Bengal, is a photographer who published works in reputed magazines like National Geographic, Practical Photography, and Indian Photo Arts. He had printed out jpeg images of $100 on photo paper for a short film.
The 24-year-old content creator, a resident of Salkia in West Bengal’s Howrah district, had been waiting for assistance from India since November, and claimed that he was being denied basic facilities in the jail, reported PTI. He also said that he was subjected to ‘torture’ for 20 days since his arrest on November 24 before being produced before a court which then sent him to judicial custody. ‘I started my journey last November. At every checkpoint, I had showed security personnel the printouts of the USD bills that I had with me for the shoot. They allowed me to get through. At the Chandragadi Airport, however, authorities sent me to an office and I was subsequently detained’, he asserted.
Chowdhury said he was carrying around 230 pieces of prop USD notes, which, ‘in no way, matched with actual currency when forensic tests were conducted’, the report of which he shared with PTI. ‘I had planned to throw them in the air and shoot a sequence for my film ‘Money Isn’t Everything’. I had never thought that I would be charged with ‘Mudra Sambandhi Kasoor’ (offence related to currency) for it in Nepal’, he said.
‘I have been treated like an animal by Nepalese Police. They didn’t allow me to call my mother in India for weeks or share my ordeal with anyone else. For the first few weeks, I was not given my inhaler. My health deteriorated and only then they showed mercy’, he said, adding that language has been a major barrier. ‘I don’t know Nepalese and none of the jail officials speak English. I gave them all details and documents, but they didn’t understand. They made me sign papers that I couldn’t read or understand’, Roy Chowdhury, who lost his father in 2015, said.
He claimed that the Indian Embassy in Nepal has been of little help to him. ‘I keep calling the Indian Embassy here every day but the officials there maintain they won’t be able to do much for me. The only thing they helped me with is a lawyer’, the photographer stated. Speaking to PTI over phone from ward number 2 of Jhapa Karagaar in Nepal, Roy Chowdhury said that court hearing of his case is scheduled for today (May 25), and he was hoping to get reprieve as he ‘have not done anything illegal’.
His mother, Tripti Roy Chowdhury, a cancer patient, said she had been running from pillar to post to secure freedom for his son over the past few months. She said that she came to know about her son’s imprisonment only in January. ‘I spent days trying to locate him. In January, when I came to know of his ordeal, I was shocked’, the 63-year-old woman, who visited her son in March, said. She said that her attempts to reach out to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee yielded no result thus far. The mother, who is also in Nepal at present for the court hearing, said she would appeal to the judge for the release of her son, ‘who is suffering in jail for no valid reason’. ‘I also want plead to the chief minister for help. I’m a cancer patient and have no one to turn to other than my son. I believe the CM will sympathise with my situation,’ she added.
Meanwhile, his lawyer informed him that the forensic report of the notes states none of the features needed to match for a currency note matched, i.e. they are just images printed on photo paper. ‘The very serious charges against him could have him imprisoned for 5-10 years. Although chances of getting him out on bail are frail, I am trying my best to get him out’, Chowdhury’s lawyer Bhim Baral said.
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