“Your wife is not yours, she is ours…”
This is not a movie dialogue, but the ugly truth of Sandeshkhali. It’s what the husbands of Hindu women have to hear from their TMC ‘masters’ in this village in North 24 Paraganas district. And it’s not even limited to Sandeshkhali… this story is spread across rural West Bengal – a state ruled by a woman chief minister!
Hindu women are specific targets for sexual assault in this region. Land and other properties belonging to Hindus is also in the crosshairs here. Most of these victims belong to the Scheduled Caste community. Sandeshkhali assembly constituency is a reserved seat for Scheduled Castes. However, ‘secular’ advocates are eerily silent because this is a TMC ruled state where Muslim appeasement comes before everything else.
The Testimonies
“They force us to go to the party office. They touch us inappropriately, they do dirty things, they rape… and if we women refuse to allow all this, they torture our family members. They have taken our lands also forcibly. They have left us with nothing…”
“What you’re seeing on TV, Didi, is the reality. It is good it has come out… we are fed up with all this,” one victim women said as she shared her ordeal with me on condition of anonymity. There was hope in her voice – hope, that things will perhaps get better now that the world has come to know of their plight.
NO FREEDOM OF PRESS
The West Bengal Police arrested Bangla Republic Reporter Santu Pan from Sandeshkhali for reporting on the Sandeshkhali atrocities. The reporter filed a petition in the Calcutta High Court, which granted him bail and ordered a stay on further proceedings in the case registered against him at Sandeshkhali Police Station.
“The petitioner was not served with a notice under section 41A CrPC and without recording any reasons for the need for his arrest, has been arrested in gross violation of law,” said Ravi Sharma, the lawyer appearing on behalf of Santu Pan along with Mahesh Jethmalani.
Another Bengali journalist Suman Dey, the host of Ghanta Khanek Sange Suman and a senior vice-president of ABP Ananda, was booked based on a complaint filed by Sandeshkhali police Sub-Inspector Md Monaim Hassan. Hassan’s complaint says Dey shared “completely false and misleading” information during the telecast of one of his episodes “with intent to cause offence against public peace”.
It is the story of hundreds of Hindu women of Sandeshkhali and many other regions of West Bengal, especially in areas bordering Bangladesh.
“They have destroyed me in every way, I cannot even talk about what all they have done to me! They have beaten up my husband mercilessly, broken his bones. My father-in-law is being tortured and beaten up for many years. We are in a very bad state…” said another lady from Sandeshkhali.
Since when has all this been happening, I asked these victims. “It’s been going on for 12-13 years now. Earlier it used to happen sometimes, then it started increasing, now it happens all the time.”
“I came here when I got married ten years ago. This has been happening since before that. Now it has become very bad,” the second lady said. “These men do whatever they want to do. There’s no stopping them. Many women are raped. They take our lands. The situation is horrible. They spare nobody, not even the men.”
How do they torture the men? “They make them do all kinds of work but do not pay them. If anyone resists, they beat them up, threaten to kill them.”
“They call the women at night. My husband told them she’s my wife, you cannot take her. They told him she’s not yours, she’s ours. They beat him up very badly.”
“Shahjahan Sheikh, purported to be the orchestrator of the entire incident, remains at large. If he is flouting the law, it is evident that the government should not be sheltering him. As a public representative, we will summon him to appear before this Court in the suo motu case. He cannot defy the law. Let him present himself before this Court. A single individual should not hold the entire populace hostage. The State administration should not support such an individual, as per our preliminary assessment”
— Calcutta High Court on February 22
“It is unfortunate that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who herself is a woman, is not taking any action against crimes being committed against women. What is even more unfortunate is that when the women and activists went to talk to the Chief Minister on this issue, they were stopped. The surprising thing is that instead of taking action against Shahjahan, the government is trying to save him. It is time that Mamata Banerjee should think if rule of law exists in WB? Is the government able to run the state according to the Constitution? The allegations are so serious. It is time to consider imposing President’s rule in Bengal
— Alok Kumar, International Working President, VHP
“We are unable to sleep at night… we are so scared. They threaten us that they’ll kill us, they say “we’ll kill your child, your husband”. What do we do?”
“Yes, there are so many families here who cannot sleep at night for fear of these men,” one karyakarta said while elaborating on the atrocities these poor families have to suffer here. “In many families, the men have gone out for work. There are only women, children and the elderly in the house. These women are easy targets. What can the women do? They’re helpless.”
Who are these men who sexually abuse the women of Sandeshkhali. The first name every victim takes is ‘Sheikh Shahjahan’. “Shahjahan and his men are behind all this. Shahjahan may not always come personally but these are all his men.” There are many names they take when asked to name “Shahjahan’s men” – Sheikh Siraj (Shahjahan’s brother), Amir Ali, Uttam Sardar, Atta and so on.
How do the victim families earn their living? “We are very poor people. We catch fish from the streams. We try to grow some food. There is hardly any work here. And these people do not let us work also, they’re torturing us in every way.”
What do the police do?
Have you gone to the police for help? “We have tried but it is of no use. They do not listen to us. The police are hands in gloves with them, they don’t do anything. Rather, they blame us in return,” one victim said.
“The police are sold in the hands of these people,” shouts one of the victims in anger. “Now they’ve been coming to our houses at night and threatening us. ‘If you speak to any outsider, we will destroy you,’ the policemen have come at night to tell us this!”
“Didi, Trinamool’s first cadre is the police, their party karyakartas come at the second position – that is the situation here,” said a local man who helped me contact one of the victim women. A strong statement indeed – loaded with a very uncomfortable, very dangerous truth that the people of Sandeshkhali have been living with for years.
Women from other places are also slowly coming out to share similar experiences. In a video shared on social media, a group of women of Jhupkhali village, near Sandeshkhali, shared the horrors perpetrated by Shahjahan’s brother and TMC leader Sheikh Sirajuddin. They also accused him of grabbing their land, ponds and homesteads. The victims alleged on camera that the West Bengal police refused to even register their complaints. “They are not for the poor and the people of Bengal. The Police sent us back to negotiate with ‘Bhaijaan’ (local way of addressing Shahjahan),” one of the women said.
There are many cases coming to light from different villages across West Bengal, especially in border areas. There are 14 assembly constituencies of West Bengal bordering Bangladesh.
History of Atrocities
Such atrocities are not new. The government has been not just turning a blind eye, it appears to give the criminal elements protection too. In 2000, a Hindu Scheduled Caste woman was gang-raped by Muslim miscreants in the Basanti assembly constituency of South 24 Parganas. Workers from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) openly spoke out against the atrocity. As a result, four RSS workers were murdered by the rapists.
Hundreds of cases of gang rape involving Hindu women have been reported. But those who raise their voices are the ones who are targeted – they are killed, their houses burnt down.
Border areas and Muslim majority areas such as North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur, Murshidabad, Malda, Nadia and Hoogly have been witnessing an alarming rise in atrocities against Hindu families, especially women.
