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Mamun Sheikh shudders every time he sees an unknown person near his tilled-roof hut at Paikpara in Basirhat off North 24 parganas, around 70 kilometers from Kolkata.
Sleep eludes him as he keeps on turning sides during night hours. He wakes up abruptly as if haunted by a nightmare and starts crying.
The nine-year-old was untraceable for several hours when the flames of communal violence gripped his village on 5 July. His family members desperately searched for him before locating him inside an abandoned shed, around 2 kilometers away from his house.
The thoughts of a mob chasing him and pelting stones at his house refuse to leave his mind, “He starts crying whenever he sees an unknown person fearing that he could attack him”, says Arifa Biwi (23), his mother as she recounts the horror of that day.
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Mamun, being a kid, might be able to forget the dreadful images as he grows up, but it would be difficult for others to expunge anything from their mind as the clashes have not only destroyed their shops and has reduced them to virtual beggars, but has also damaged the social fabric that Basirhat was so proud of.
Standing outside the skeleton of her tea-shop, Putul Shee, narrates her plight to every visitor with the hope of getting some financial aid. After all, her condition is pathetic.
The fifty-five year-old widow has the responsibility to feed the hungry mouths of her three siblings who are all blind.
The situation across Basirhat subdivisions is limping towards normalcy over a week after communal clashes erupted in Baduria and soon fanned to other areas over an objectionable Facebook post allegedly by a Class 12 student.
He has since been arrested and his family kept at an undisclosed location by the police to save them from the crowd who demanded that the boy should be publicly punished.
People from both the communities have claimed the violence to be the handiwork of ‘outsiders’ and have vowed not to allow the seed of hatred to be sown.
“We have lived as a close-knit families for over decades and have celebrated both Eid and Diwali together”, said Ajet Ali Mondal, 60, whose grocery shop was looted and vandalised by the mob at Tyantra. He has suffered losses to the tune of Rs 65,000.
The administration has confirmed the death of one person in the clashes though sources claimed that more people have died in the violence. Internet services are still suspended to prevent the spread of rumours. Over 30 persons have been arrested so far on accusations of fomenting trouble. Rail and road traffic movement is slowly turning towards normalcy.
The cops and BSF Jawans are patrolling the villages round the clock to prevent any untoward incident. The state government has already ordered a judicial inquiry to bring the perpetrators to book.
Politics has begun to breed on the fertile ground of fear and violence. The BJP flags are visible in areas which were hit with violence. The minority community has been accusing the ‘outsiders’, particularly the RSS and BJP, for instigating the mob.
The South Basirhat constituency that witnessed intense unrest was held by BJP’s Samik Bhattacharya, before Trinamool Congress won the assembly seat last year. Some of the affected people have also blamed the sitting Trinamool MLA Dipendu Biswas for triggering chaos.
State BJP president Dilip Ghosh has, however, dismissed any involvement of his party or any Hindu organisations in creating disturbance.
The clashes have also led to a showdown between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi, with the former accusing the Governor of behaving like the “BJP block president.” She has also blamed the saffron party for fanning communal tensions in the state. The state government has already ordered a judicial probe to bring the perpetrators to book.
Far from the political rumblings, the victims of the mayhem are staring at a bleak future after having lost everything in an unrest in which they had no role to play.
(The writer is a Kolkata-based freelance journalist.)
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