Bengal Post-Poll Violence: At the Mercy of Islamists

 

As the result of the Assembly Poll that came out in West Bengal, statewide violence was unleashed on May 2, 2021, which continued for long thereafter. People and their properties were invaded in different parts of West Bengal, and the mechanism of invasion was uncannily similar everywhere. Invasive modus operandi is so similar in different parts of the State that it appears to be a cold-blooded prepense. Once the poll result came out, TMC hoodlums hardly delayed to break out with a bang as they were all prepared to execute the plan. People started escaping from West Bengal as their establishments, lives and women were targeted.

In the month of March 2022, Najmus Shahdat Siddiqui, an Islamic Cleric of Furfura Sharif, incidentally issued a statement reminding & reinforcing the reality that TMC won the 3rd term by Muslims’ votes. “We elected you there, won’t let you build a Mandir or a Masjid”, said he. The Furfura Cleric wielded such a statement against Mamata Banerjee’s loutish assertion that under her reign, a Jagannath Mandir would be built in the small seaside town of Digha, Purba Medinipur.

Najmus Siddiqui’s objection against Jagannath Mandir in Digha was not devoid of political significance as in the recent past, illegal immigrants from Bangladesh had settled mostly in Purba Medinipur district of which I got a glance as I travelled to Digha in April last year while Assembly Election was going on. A peculiar change in the environment of Digha was apparent. Almost 100% of labours in the unorganised sector, starting right from street hawkers selling peanuts to drivers of e rickshaws, were Muslims eyeing women in a weird manner. On being asked, an e-rickshaw man enthusiastically stated that no one could ever defeat Mamata Banerjee in Ramnagar Assembly Constituency (to which Digha belonged) as they would all vote for her in unity. He asserted Mamata arranged to bring them therefrom Bangladesh and got them settled with Auto Rickshaws, e-rickshaws and other means of livelihood. However, the e-rickshaw man added that some other party might try to defeat her with dishonest techniques.

Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators are well aware that mechanisms of dishonesty for achieving poll victory exist here in West Bengal. On the beach of New Digha, there stood a grotesque architecture almost resembling a MAYURPANKHI NAO (a peacock-shaped boat as described in Indian fairytales) coloured loud bluish-green having a few small skylights like windows. It was a restaurant. Such architecture didn’t match the taste of West Bengal but reflected Muslims’ choice of colour and size of windows. Uncouth Bangladeshi Muslims were also perhaps managing to bag contracts for construction works on the land of West Bengal.

A year didn’t pass since then before Ansar, one of the prime accused in Delhi’s Jahangirpuri violence, found his root in Purba Medinipur. Along with Ansar, two other prime accused arrested by Delhi Police, namely Dilshad and Farid, also belonged originally to Purba Medinipur. Such Bangladeshi infiltrators of Purba Medinipur didn’t lag behind anyone in precipitating devious violence against the people of West Bengal in May 2021. “Leave me, my son, me like your’ mother’, am I not?” whimpered Purba Medinipur’s Pratima Das (not her original name) of above 60 in front of Usmaan Ara in vain. Usmaan raped her deep at night in front of her 6 years old grandson. Consciously breaching Indic ethos, Usmaans appeared in the land of Ramkrishna Paramhansa, and West Bengal has fallen enough to accommodate them. While women’s genitals once turned battleground in undivided India before partition and in East Pakistan afterwards, post-partition India didn’t observe such a civilisational crisis that seized West Bengal in its hysteric grip in 2021.

At the time of joining the BJP, Suvendu Adhikari, a leader from Purba Medinipur, categorically stated Mamata Banerjee was consciously attempting to cause the evolution of West Bengal into ‘Pakistan’, perhaps referring to such an organised effort to settle Bangladeshi Muslims in West Bengal.

17-years-old Bipasha Hajra (not her original name) of Ugrapara, Kandi, Murshidabad was gang-raped as she was a vocal supporter of the BJP. Israfil Sheikh, Nazir Hossain, Najrul Sheikh and another unknown person gang-raped her near Bagor village on May 9, 2021. Along with friend Mithu Das, Bipasha went to her grandmother’s place on that day and didn’t return till 8.30 at night. Anxious parents rushed to Mithu’s house at around 8.30 pm to check if Mithu was back. However, they didn’t find even Mithu at home, who finally returned at around 9 o’clock, heckled, devastated and terrorised, claiming the men named above attempted to rape her too. Bipasha failed to escape their grip, while Mithu managed to flee. Being informed about her tentative location from Mithu, Bipasha’s poor parents rushed in search of their daughter at once. Not far away from Bagor village, they found her clothes while Bipasha was spotted senseless mere in torn undergarments.

Displaying cheerful glee on hunting a Hindu girl, “Look, a Hindu Girl, it’s our party time”— Israfil Sheikh, Nazir Hossain and Najrul Sheikhs pounced on Bipasha. “Simply because we voted for a different party, they did this to our daughter”, wailed Bipasha’s mother. Her wailing reverberated all around and far away from Murshidabad. Even the cosiest corners of Kolkata households have stealthily stored a tiny, invisible puddle of her tears.

Women of Bengal were attacked rampant at their genitals, but no one lost mind to going for armed rebellion against the barbaric savagery. While blood streamed down between two lower limbs of abused ladies, and they wailed up to the horizon amidst planned lockdown, no one in any corner of Bengal turned insurgent. A spell was cast on the land of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s ANANDAMATH. Sannyasi Vidroh ki is bhumi ko grahan lag gaya. Women turned victims of political violence in the land of Matripuja appeared fallacious. Did the State’s Durgapuja all through these years remain mere ceremonious? From the nineties beginning under communists’ rule, West Bengal gradually termed Durga Puja as SHARADOTSAV. 7000 women were reportedly raped, molested, and assaulted out of political vengeance in a State which faced hyenas’ invasion along its wide-open eastern border all through these years. Bengal failed Bharat. Bharat too grossly failed West Bengal as Bharat didn’t, as yet, do anything significant addressing the State’s geographical and historical idiosyncrasy.

A large section of India’s populace ignores the fact of partition in a way as if it never happened. However, Bengal, being physically divided during partition, stood deprived by the State of India in 1947 as well as in 2021. The State of India preferred to forget the hard fact that West Bengal was electorally created for Hindu Bengalis, and maintaining the State’s Hindu identity was as much a responsibility of the Indian parliament as abrogating the temporary provision of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir. West Bengal is the State that shares the longest international border with an Islamic country. While Jammu and Kashmir share a 1222 km border with Islamic Pakistan, West Bengal shares a 2216.17 km border with Islamic Bangladesh. It’s still a riddle why exactly GOI kept the long West Bengal-Bangladesh border largely open.

While power politics often integrates with a flourishing exhibition of muscle power and expectedly so, sexual assault of women as a mechanism thereof was never the Bharatiya style of power parade. West Bengal went on a democratic election while the hyenas looked at it as a war of their kind. Bharat never attacked women in a war, but these people did. Those who plundered women as booty did not reflect possess Bharat in their psyche. This was the precise crux of post-poll violence in West Bengal. It was an invasion of Bharat in the twenty-first century.

Though West Bengal media remained silent about violence and atrocities, they didn’t abstain from propagating denial of violence, vociferously elucidating post-poll violence was an imaginary phenomenon being promulgated by a specific political party to communalise the State. “Nothing happened in Bengal violence”, said the Chief Minister indicating the standpoint media must adopt regarding Bengal violence, and so they did. While a section of the urban populace of Bengal subscribed to her “nothing happened” statement, they didn’t care to pay a visit to Calcutta High Court to enquire how many petitions of rape, murder, attempt to rape, molestation etc. were submitted there in relation to post-poll violence.

However, the primary observation of the Calcutta High Court upon innumerable petitions submitted therein in relation to Bengal violence was supposed to shock the conscience of civil society. While Bengal media’s fake propaganda by negating post-poll violence ab initio got exposed after the Court’s verdict, people of all sections of the society gradually sensed something was being pushed under the carpet. Film director Srijit Mukherjee who politically aligns mostly with CPM, initiated a word or two against post-poll violence immediately after it erupted but stopped promptly as the lurid monstrous communal traits thereof became apparent. CPM stopped as they didn’t want to endorse the hard fact that post-poll violence in West Bengal was plainly a Hindicidal one.

The police and administration of West Bengal formed integral parts of the violence precipitating machinery. While many people were driven out of their houses during post-poll Bengal Violence, their identity documents like Pan Card, AADHAR Card, Voter ID Card were snatched away by political thugs. It is not impossible that GOWB officers would use those documents of the true residents of West Bengal to establish infiltrators in their places using their documents. While such extrapolation about West Bengal bureaucrats may appear irrational and defamatory, their antecedents and the Court’s observation of them would make such an assessment of GOWB officers appear credible.

Additional Chief Secretary Home Harikrishna Dwivedi actively stonewalled investigating teams and facilitated violence by keeping his police mere “mute spectators” (as observed by the Court). He didn’t serve necessary information repeatedly sought after by different statutory bodies and fact-finding teams. Nor did he hesitate a bit to go passively non-compliant even against Court’s instructions. Paragraph 80 of the High Court verdict stated— “…in a number of cases, the State had failed to register the FIRs and opined the same to be not the cases of murder. In some cases, even after registration of FIR, the observation by the State is that these may result in ‘no case’. This shows pre-determined mind to take an investigation in a particular direction. Under such circumstances, investigation by independent agency will inspire confidence to all concerned.” The fact that police acted from a preconceived standpoint in handling post-poll violence cases received judicial endorsement.

The Constitution of India has created the provisions like Article 3 and an emergency to streamline such States that indulge in deliberate spiritual violation of the Constitution for dragging undue benefits towards only a specific set of people. However, the Nationalist Government at the Centre appears committed only to a non-conflicting copybook-style of governance without utilising such provisions of power exhibition. The present ruling dispensation at Delhi appears hesitant to use State Power even against the rogues, perhaps out of apprehension of losing people’s support. In my humble observation, the reality seems reverse in the case of West Bengal. If BJP-led Parliament exhibits strength to dissolve the statehood of Bengal by applying Article 3 and change its status into a Union Territory for the indefinite future, the Party, instead of losing, would gain popularity manifold not only in West Bengal but also in the rest of India. In one stroke, the State of West Bengal would then come into BJP’s fold because the helpless common people of the State have been awaiting an ‘action’ for a long. Hence, the application of sheer might upon West Bengal has the potential to be a political masterstroke by BJP.