By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter
The mob violence in Baduria, North Parganas and the subsequent damage to public property and shops once again exposed the fragile nature of Hindu-Muslim relations in West Bengal. It is important to point out that in the past six months, West Bengal has seen several such skirmishes in Dhaulagarh, Kidderpore and other regions surrounding Kolkata. However, it is also clear that the peace-loving community of the state and especially Kolkata are not lying down and are instead taking all necessary steps to ensure communal harmony in the state.
On Wednesday, a procession of about 250 people, consisting of many intellectuals, painters, essayists, Professors, journalists, film-maker and common people assembled at the Barasat railway station to protest against the communal tension that broke out at Baduria. The procession covered a long 5 km road show from the station to the main bazaar of Barasat like Chapadali More, Dakbanglo road and Colony More.
The program started at around 5.15 p.m with the recitation of a revolutionary poem, followed by a song by Lalan Fakir and continued till 8 p.m. The slogans were “don’t heed to rumours, we want bread, not skirmish over temple and mosque”, “ go away peace destroyer, let live us with our neighbours peacefully”.
On July 2, a 17-year-old boy from Hindu community posted an objectionable photo related to Islam, following which a number of Muslims came out to protest. Subsequently, the protests got ugly and a number of shops were burnt down. Thankfully, no one was killed.
There were many personalities from organizations participated in this program, like Sarmistha Duttagupta from the recent # Not in my Name protests, Aditi Bose of Maitri—an organization that works for violence against women and communal tension, Nitish Ray, Babuni Majumder from Gana Sanskriti Parishad, Nirmal Ghosh, Jayatu Deshmukh of AIPF(All India People’s Forum ), APDR (Association for Protection of Democratic Rights) persons of North 24 Parganas, Debashis Aich of PUCL(People’s Union for Civil Liberties), Pramod from #OccupyCollegeStreet# and Anirban Das of Jessore Road Save Trees.
Robin Das, one of the conveners of this program, said “at first we 4-5 people took decision for a road show against the Baduria incident and we shared our plan in social media asking civil society to join in this communal harmony march. We are satisfied with the response. There are many organisations that have stood by us.”
Aditi Bose, a member of Maitri, said, “ those who are involved in rioting must be punished. Politics of colour must be left behind for a peaceful coexistence”. Bose also said that the chief minister Mamata Banerjee should ensure safety to each and every citizen by enforcing law and order abruptly especially in sensitive places.
Puspal Bhattacharya, a painter and also a resident of Barasat, said “ we celebrate Eid, Durga Puja with our fellow Muslim brothers for many times. My Muslim neighbours come my home and I too go theirs, why should we let an evil force destroy this bonding?” he added that there are many mosques in his colony and they never felt any disturbances caused by the sound of the mike.
Besides these, there were many other civil persons who joined in this march. There were Suman Sengupta, Assistant Professor at Calcutta University, Emanul Haque, Bengali Professor at Bidhannagar Government College, Ashoke Chatterjee, an essayist from Bashirhat, Biswajit Roy, a senior journalist etc.