Separate incidents of extreme violence in West Bengal in recent weeks have resulted in the death of a young man from Kerala who was lynched by a mob, the death of a man who intervened to protect his son from a mob, the death of a Trinamool Congress worker in police custody, and yet another death in a “police encounter”. This deeply disturbing and growing list of incidents in a state notorious for post-poll political violence points to the failure of the new BJP government to address the safety concerns of political rivals and ordinary citizens alike.

The state’s failure to intervene and stop violence has become so routine that the Bharatiya Janata Party has barely reacted to Communist Party of India (Marxist) state secretary Mohammad Salim’s description of the new ruling dispensation as the “Bharatiya Goonda Party”. Salim made the remark following the death of Sheikh Mohammad Mafik, who intervened when his son, Abdul Hafiz, was allegedly assaulted by a large group of BJP workers. Hafiz, a volunteer with the Cockroach Janata Party, had joined the “School Theek Karo” campaign and visited the local village school as part of an audit. According to CPI(M) leaders and Ashutosh Ranka, who visited the village, local BJP leaders cautioned Hafiz and allegedly abused him, calling him “Pakistani”, “Atankvadi” (terrorist) and other names.

The account of the violence is corroborated by eyewitnesses and Hafiz’s mother, Hasina Bibi, a thin and frail woman who wants her son to continue fighting for the rights of the village people. “A world-class school in my father’s name” is the only compensation Abdul Hafiz wants from the West Bengal government, rather than the routine cash compensation and promise of a precarious government job.

Even as Ranka and his team were speaking to the family, chief minister Adhikari and the police were hard at work on social........

© National Herald