On July 2, a Facebook post by a Hindu teenager sparked violent communal clashes in North Parganas, which led to the death of one person and the destruction of a few police vehicles. However, amid all this, the way the news played out on social media, and the reactions it received shows that in this day and age it is becomingly increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction. It is important also to point out that BJP and its related organisations went on an overdrive to tarnish the image not just of Muslims in Bengal but also promote false news. While party members went berserk uploading fake images on social media, its leaders came out saying that they would ensure a Godhra-like incident happens in Bengal soon. In this two-part series, Mirza Mosaraf Hossain looks at Baduria and Basirhat separately and focus on separating facts from fiction. In the second part, we look at how things unfolded in the week following July 2 in Basirhat, and listen to what the locals had to say about the incidents.
Basirhat is one of the four sub-divisions of Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district. It is also a Municipality city consisting of about 1.43 lakh people. The municipality is divided into 23 wards having a distribution of 77.60% Hindus, 22.21% Muslims and the literacy rate of Basirhat city is 87.35%, as per the 2011 census.
It comprises of 15 TMC Councillors, 2 CPIM, 3 Congress and 2 councillors from the BJP. On July 3, a day after the offensive Facebook post, local police issued a notice forbidding Hindus to enter Muslim-majority areas with their Rathyatra to avoid what would seem like an inevitable collision between these two communities as till then the Baduria incident spread to this locality.
Hindus took this notice as a favour by the police to the Muslims and they started to attack Muslims, their shops, properties in outrage. Three bikes were damaged on the spot before the police and one of the Muslim owners of the bike were beaten up by the mob. Then the Hindu mob approached to the mosque adjacent to Basirhat Court. Muslims reiterated by burning some of the Hindus’ footpath fruit shops and some other shops in the market. Police arrested six Muslims from the West Dandirhat village mosque compound.
According to the people present on the spot at the time of the collision between Hindus and Muslims, a clash occurred between the local police and the RAF when the local MLA, Dibendu Biswas asked the police to search the houses of the Hindus since he believed they had stored arms and bombs in their houses. Rapid Action Force obstructed the police from doing so and the Hindu mobs present there attacked, Biswas.
Even the party office of the TMC was destroyed. At least ten Muslims from various places of Basirhat municipality are seriously injured and three of them are in a very critical situation. They are referred to Kolkata-based city hospitals by the Basirhat sub divisional hospital.
Reajul Mollah, a fish hawker from Hossenpur village under Minakha police station, said, On Tuesday morning, I was on my way to sell fish when more than twenty people with arms in their arms asked my name and started to hit me at Schoolbari of Raghunathpur village. I managed to flee from the spot and started to run with blood oozing out from my head towards my in law’s house nearby Falguni hall where I was severely beaten with rods and bamboos and was forced to say Jai Sri Ram.” He added that College students also attacked him at Collegepara and he would not have been alive if he did not pretend to be unconscious.
Sahinur Alam, a 28-year-old painter was also beaten on his head, face on his way to home from work. Both Reajul and Sahinur, along with four other injured are admitted to SSKM Hospital. The same thing happened on Tuesday at around 4.40 P.M with Abdar Gazi, a 55 years old resident of Batul village, 12 km away from Basirhat. He was attacked by more than 400 Hindus at Basirhat Bridge crossing who asked him his name and started to beat till his body smears with blood and was forced to say Jai Sri Ram. Later an e-rickshaw driver took him to his home.
A mentality retarded Muslim beggar namely Mohsin Gazi from Anantapur village was also attacked by Hindu mobs when he entered Rajib colony of Basirhat, a Hindu dominated colony and he is now in ICU at R. G Kar Hospital. According to a local journalist, Mizanur Rahaman, on Wednesday a Hindu mob was approaching towards a local jam-e Mosque to destroy it under the leadership of the BJP worker Kartik Ghosh. Ghosh fell on the ground wounded by some weapon in a tussle with local Muslims who came forward to protect the mosque.”
The Superintendent of Police, North 24 Parganas could not be reached for comments on this and his phone went unanswered many times. Tapan Debnath, the local councillor of Basirhat, ward no 14 gave a couple of statements to Twocircles.Net which differ from reality, as this correspondent found out when he visited the spot. Debnath claimed that a group of Muslims first attacked Hindus and destroyed many temples and shops.
He refused to acknowledge the attack on the mosque adjacent to the Court and termed it as a lie. He also said that it was a pre-planned plot by Muslims. However, when this correspondent visited Basirhat, there was no trace of a temple being destroyed and no Hindu shops were burnt in the market. He also failed to give names of Hindu people who were injured in the clash as he claimed.
There were many women in a queue in front of the Kalibari temple, which was highlighted in social media as being destroyed by Muslims, to do their worship. Though there were three police standing beside the temple, there was no trace of burning or breaking a single brick. On the other hand, the Basirhat mosque adjacent to the court was locked and was a police van was invigilating the mosque area. But it was not just social media where lies were being spread.
Bengal’s leading daily Anandabazar Patrika published a news by Nirmal Bose on 6th July claiming that Hindu families of Paruipara at West Dandirhat were beaten severely and they were forced to flee to the nearby Hindu colony, Burma Colony as their houses were burnt by the Muslims of the village. But according to a Hindu family from Paruipara, “The news is fabricated.
Our Muslim brothers have not done anything to us; instead, they assured us they would protect us from the mishap till there was blood in their veins. She added, “When Hindus were attacking the other part of the village, we fled from our houses in utter fear. We are now in our own homes”.
When Bose was told over the phone by a local reporter that his piece provoked Hindus and jeopardised the situation, he replied he does not care about the consequences that he wrote. Interestingly, the rioting mobs at the two places, Baduria and Basirhat, were outsiders, not locals.
According to the Chairman of Basirhat municipality, “The attackers at Basirhat were not from this city, they were outsiders. We are investigating who were these mobs.” He claimed that it is the mastermind of BJP-RSS who are trying to create some issues in order to create a tense situation in Bengal. Locals and eye witnesses at the time of the incident confessed that the rioters were mostly Hindi-speaking people.
The cases of Kartik Ghosh’s son, Prabhasis Ghosh, who rescued his fellow villager, Fazlul and admitted him at Hospital along with his father along with the revelations made by residents of Paruipara Hindu colony shows that the local Hindu-Muslim relation is very cordial and based on years of trust.
The local Hindus are bullied by BJP-RSS masterminds. A question also arises from the fact that not a single Hindu was injured or admitted at any hospital, except Kartik Ghosh who died in a tussle and his death was well used by right-wing forces to gain sympathy.
According to a close source, Baduria-Basirhat was targeted by BJP-RSS from some time ago and in accordance with that plan, a local newspaper claimed that Pakistani flag was unfurled at a mosque on the day of Eid, when in fact it was the Islamic flag. The photo that Souvik posted at Facebook was their means of provocation.
On 30th of June, the photo was selectively shared with Hindu youths in Facebook’s comment section by the RSS’s IT Cell, which also ensured that the photo is circulated among Hindus. According to this source, Souvik might have been tempted to download the photo and posted it on his timeline on 2nd July or his account might have been hacked and his profile was maintained by someone else.