What is the status of the Hindus in India itself? In Jammu & Kashmir not only the non-Muslims were brutally evicted from Kashmir and forced to live as refugees in their own country, recently Shariat law was about to be implement in the whole of the state. Does that mean the Government of India accept that Jammu & Kashmir is not part of India, which is secular according to its Constitution, and religious laws cannot have any place?
In West Bengal, the situation is turning bad to worse as the state is about to be taken over by the Muslim infiltrators from Bangladesh. The percentage of the Muslim population in West Bengal went up from 9 per cent in 1947 to 26 per cent in 2001, which cannot be explained by the normal growth of population in that area.
We have seen the dual standard of the state government towards the population. In Singur, Hindus were brutally evicted from their houses and lands to make room for the Tata Motor Company. However, in the proposed Haldiya Special Economic Zone where majority of the farmers are Muslims, with most of them illegal Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh, the government has decided to halt the land acquisitions only because Jamait-e-Islam is against it. Thus it is very clear that Hindu farmers have no importance but Muslim farmers got to be protected.
That is not all. Here is another evidence of the brutality of the state government of West Bengal to the poor Hindus in West Bengal. The ghost of Islamic fundamentalism has finally set itself in this part of the state too. The issue which was dormant and always needed a political shelter has finally come out with its sinister design.
On 26.01.07 in the village Banirdhal under police station of Kultali, Dist. South 24 Pargana, the Hindu boys for immersion of the idol of Goddess Saraswati at about 8.30 pm along with a procession reached a crossing named Ghatihareania. But the moment the procession reached the side of a mosque, stones, bricks and other lethal arsenals were thrown on the procession resulting in the breaking of two hands, crown and swan of the Holy Deity and lots of Hindu boys getting injured. It was followed by a deadly assault by a number of Muslim anti-socials fully armed, who dragged three Hindu youth inside the mosque and tortured them severely. When a local thug named Sahabuddin Molla was about to butcher them into pieces they somehow managed to flee.
As a reaction to this, about 1500 Hindus furiously started demonstrations in the Ghatihareania market area, for preserving the broken idol and to draw the attention of the local police camp accompanied by Officers-in-Charge of Kultali and Jayanagar, SDPO-Baruipur, CI-Canning and RAF.
Meanwhile armed Muslim mob also started assembling at the local Idgah Maidan being instructed by the local Masjid Committee, the other masjids were also informed at the earliest, this was proved by the arrival of Muslims? motorcycle brigades from the vicinity. Though the police barricaded the Hindus but due to cold wind when they tried to reach out at 2.30 a.m., without a single provocation RAF and the rest of the police force suddenly pounded upon the assembled Hindus and relentlessly threw them into the police vans. The police officers were also found castigating the Hindus and vilifying the Hindu deities. Altogether 38 Hindus were arrested of which 10-12 were under 15 years of age.
One person arrested, named Bacchu Mondal was forced to write after custodial torture that he out of his own will had immersed the Holy Deity. After that the police itself did the act of immersion.
On the basis of complaints the police arrested only two Muslims. But the real culprits named?Abu Taleb Sheikh, Sahjahan Laskar, Abdulla Sheikh, Mohiudin Laskar, Dayud Joddar, Jamal Molla, Khalil Sheikh, Abu Siddik Sheikh, Abu Kalam Sheikh and Arif Sheikh?were not arrested.
Out of 38 arrested Hindus, 11 were alleged of violence. Their domestic lives have become miserable. It is suspected that the political highhandedness of the ruling front has made the police behave insensitively.
Against this vandalism, a demonstration was staged by the Hindus against the local administration. The agitation was a huge success with the attendance of a large number of Hindus on their own from all walks of life, even from remote corners of the area. The organisers were able to control the anger of the crowd. But while returning from the meeting two motor vans carrying Hindu men and women were again attacked by the Muslims at a crossing called Tarunir More of Jaya Nagar police station in which 16 passengers including eight women were brutally beaten up leading to their admission in a nearby hospital. But from this moment the police and local administration acted in the most hostile manner and tried to disrupt the normal activities of the relatives of the admitted persons in every way.
Even eminent persons could not escape from the persecution. In the deputation team was Shri Raneswar Das, a reputed businessman of the local area and President, South 24 Pargana District of the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch who was asked to be present at the Baruipur police station at 10.30 pm at night, by order of SDPO. When he refused the SDPO came on his own to Shri Das? residence and there the police dragged him, his ailing elder brother Shri Dinesh Das, a heart patient, Shri Dinesh Das? sons and a local boy forcefully after an inhuman torture. Exploiting the terrified situation the police made Shri Raneswar Das sign a piece of paper containing three-four lines. Later he was released.
But still 34 Hindus are languishing behind the bars, innocent but victims of a heinous conspiracy, of which 12 are mere boys of age 12-13 years. As fresh reports are coming out, three more Hindu businessmen have been arrested at the Ghatihareania village.
(The writer is a journalist and human rights activist, and can be contacted at animitrachakraborty@yahoo.co.in)
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