17/01/2026
To all those who quiz,
On the 10th of January, during the Kolkata International Quiz Festival, Kinshuk Biswas forcibly touched a woman, an undergraduate student, without her consent. This, the woman felt, was exceedingly inappropriate.
This statement is fact, witnessed by multiple people.
Before we go any further, it is important to emphasize that respecting her privacy is of paramount importance. She should not have to shoulder the heavy burden of public scrutiny. Please do not allow her to be dragged into the center of this, or inadvertently reveal her identity (should you know it).
The quizzing community in Kolkata and wider Bengal, as well as quizzing associations from across the country, all stand united and loudly condemn the conduct of Kinshuk Biswas.
This calls for immediate action, including barring Kinshuk Biswas from all forms of quizzing for the foreseeable future. This is the first step in designing a space in which the traumatized victim (and every other vulnerable person) is not scared to step into.
The undersigned thus request that all quizzers who read this:
1. Decline to team up with him
2. Refuse to allow him to participate in quizzes they conduct/organize
3. Have him restricted from quizzical spaces they have access to
4. Evict him from any active online/offline quiz leagues
5. Boycott any quiz he himself wishes to conduct
This exile will be important to create a safety buffer between any such predatory behaviour, and the quizzing spaces we hold so dear to our hearts.
The undersigned do not believe in cancelling human beings. There must be room for reconciliation and cure, for overcoming one's own past, and for repentance and transformation.
But these lie far distant in the future. For now, Kinshuk Biswas must be punished, and the victim given the time and space she requires to heal.
At the same time, we should all take some time out to pause and inspect our own words and deeds, and see to it that the culture of misogyny in which such actions are rooted is not perpetuated further. This is the only way to ensure that quizzing strives towards being inclusive of all, without any prejudice.
From:
Aakash Roy
Aatreyi Sarkar
Abhilasha Singh
Abhyudoy Basu
Adarsh Kumar Mohapatra
Aditya Narayan Sen
Aditya Pal
Aishwarya
Amartya Saha
Amlan Sanyal
Ananya Upadhya
Aniket Mishra
Annway Ghosh
Anushko Mondal
Aparna Sriram
Apratim Mukhopadhyay
Arijit Mondal
Arnab Mondal
Arnab Pal
A***n Patel
Ashin Das
Ashvini Natu
Avijit Banerjee
Avinash Mishra
Avishek Ghosh
Ayush Sharma
Baibaswata Jena
Balagopal Menon
Baneswar Sarkar
Bishanka Dassarma
Bodhisattva Basu
Chitrak Mukherjee
Dayita Saha
Debanjan Bose
Debanjan Mahapatra
Debasmita Bhowmik
Dipan Adhikary
Fahad Taslim
Hrishikesh Varma
Indranath Mukherjee
Indrayudh Ghosh
J Krishnamurti
Jaydip Ghosh
Joy Banerjee
Kalyani Kiran
Karishnu Banerjee
Kritadhi Banerjee
Kunal Roy
Mahendra Balu
Medha Dey
Mitun Biswas
Nikhil Sarkar
Partha Sarathi Ghatak
Pinaki Sarkar
Piyush Kedia
Prakhar Sreeguru
Pranjal Jharkaria
Prateen Dhara
Preetham Upadhya
Prithwish Datta
Raktim Nag
Reesoom Pal
Ritwik Ghosh
Ruru Chowdhury
Rush Mukherjee
Saamwrik Biswas
Samiran Mondal
Samriddhi Patra
Samyo Sengupta
Sania Narulkar
Sanjay Chakraborty
Sanjhdiya Swetlana
Santonab Chakraborty
Sarbajit Mitra
Saswat Panigrahi
Saswata Acharya
Saswata Chakraborty
Shamsuddin Haider
Shankha Ghosh Dastidar
Shobhyam Chakravarty
Siddhant Agarwal
Soahom Chakraborty
Soumalya Chakrabarty
Soumik Choudhury
Soumya Majumdar
Soumyabrata Mahapatra
Soumyadeep Das
Soumyajit Chatterjee
Souptik Das
Souptik Ghosh
Sourasis Bose
Sourjo Sengupta
Sreshth Shah
Sreyashi Dastidar
Srijon Jana
Stotra Mukhopadhyay
Subhadeep Sarkar
Sujit Ray
Sumanta Gupta
Sumantrasarathi Datta
Supriya
Sutanu Banerjee
Swapnil Das
Thejaswi Udupa
Thirtharaj Sarkar
Thirtharaj Sur
Titash Banerjee
Tramila Dutta
Ujan Sen
Yashjit Mondal
Zainab Haleem
And endorsed by:
Atharva, the quizzing club of IIM Kozhikode
B612 Quiz League
Bombay Quiz Club
Delhi Quiz Club
Enquiry, the quiz club of Jadavpur University
Fundaesliga Quiz League
IIT KGP Quiz Club
Karnataka Quiz Association
Nadia Quiz Lovers
Uttar Dinajpur District Quiz Association
Amra Quiz Pagoler Dol
