?Day is yours, night is ours?

Cattle smugglers’ diktat to Bengal villagers

IT seems the administration in West Bengal has almost taken the regular assaults on its citizens in its stride. Continuing with this tradition, on April 23 night, at around 11pm, a mob of some 250 people attacked village Khashpur under Ramchandrapur Uday Gram Panchayat. This falls under Baduria Block, Baduria PS of North 24 Parganas near the district town of Bashirhat.

According to the locals some criminal elements use this village as a transit route for cattle smuggling into Bangladesh. After sunset the narrow village streets and lanes are all taken over by these unscrupulous elements forcing the villagers to stay indoors. Villagers told that there has been a open diktat which says din tomader raat aamade  means, Day is yours while night is ours. Naturally the villagers were living in constant fear every night and could not venture out of their homes. Even in case of medical emergency they had no option but to helplessly watch their near and dear ones growling in pain. Important and prominent village streets like Purono Kheya Ghat, Khashpur Puronopara, Machlandapur Tetulia Road are strictly no-go areas after sunset. This has been the norm of this village of independent Bharat. Few days back the youth amongst the village organised a protest and mass petition campaign against this and even confronted some of these cattle smugglers.

As a result the village was attacked. Houses were break opened, household items broken, costly jewellery and cash looted, men folks were beaten and even women were assaulted. As per the norm the Baduria police have refused to register any complain. Speaking with me one Samarendu Pal who is a CPM Panchayat member corroborated the facts. The villagers have identified one Miral to have led the lumpen mob. Miral a inhabitant of the adjoining Hatathgunj area has been a known history-sheeter and is been accused of many criminal incidents in the past.

(Krishanu Mitra, VSK Kolkata)