Trigger warning: the following article has references to violence and suicide. Please avoid reading if you feel distressed by the subjects.
“I do not know who beat me up,” Rubina (name changed to protect identity) says, irritated at a television journalist who repeatedly asks her to identify the aggressor.
The flash of the camera lights up the dark room, revealing a corrugated ceiling and red walls of a structure made of aluminium sheets. She clasps her hands and moves her feet nervously on the bed. Around her are discarded bulbs and, incongruously, new utensils. The camera light shines on her face covered with a red and grey dupatta as she faces a barrage of questions about the assault, allegedly by local Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Tajmul Islam alias JCB. The incident is said to have taken place at a kangaroo court in Chopra block, Uttar Dinajpur district, West Bengal, in the last week of June.
A viral video of the incident, running a little over a minute, showed the woman along with a man, Rafiq (name changed), being mercilessly beaten up in a market at a village in Chopra. The crowd, mostly consisting of men, gathered in a circle, watching the fracas, but not intervening to stop the violence. The woman is seen not resisting the attacks, even though she writhed in pain. The duo, allegedly in an extramarital relationship, lay helplessly on the street.
Siliguri, West Bengal, The surviver of Chopra violence at her residence, where a couple was beaten up publicaly at a kangaroo court by a local Trinamool Leader. | Photo Credit: Debasish Bhaduri
About 50 km north of Chopra is Fulbari in Jalpaiguri district. Here, on June 29, Sabita Barman, 38, allegedly took her life. She had been in a relationship with a man outside her marriage. Tapas Barman, her husband, says she was beaten up by locals who had gathered outside their home when the couple had tried to return home.
Sabita, who worked as a nursing attendant, had left home for a few days and asked her husband to come and pick her up from her parents’ place. “On our way back, locals said she cannot return home like that,” says Tapas. “Our neighbours, Swapna and her husband Barjen Adhikari, had threatened to attack and burn down our house if I allowed my wife to enter.”
Contrary to the claims by the Siliguri Police Commissionerate that “there was no incident of public assault or mob outrage”, Tapas points to the place his wife was allegedly assaulted just a few metres away from their home. Four persons, including the Adhikari couple, who are associated with the ruling TMC, have been arrested by the New Jalpaiguri police for abetment to suicide.
Rubina and Swapna have been silenced by kangaroo courts; fear and guilt gashed deep into their lives.
Shock and horror
Days after, Rubina refuses to talk about the violence. Just as the crowd had voyeuristically gathered a week ago, it comes again, this time surrounding her house, even entering the room where mediapersons are gathered.
“You do not know who beat you up? The whole State knows who the person is,” a reporter persists. The woman is silent. “Are you under any pressure? The person has been arrested. What makes you afraid?” Again, silence.
She breaks her silence at a question on whether she required medical help. “They conducted a medical [examination] at Islampur Hospital and gave me some medicines,” she says. She does not say whether she is in physical pain or discomfort.
Hours before the journalists converged, she had refused to meet Governor C.V. Ananda Bose, who had travelled from New Delhi to Bagdogra in Siliguri, about 50 km from Chopra. “The victim wants to be left alone, and I respect her right to do so,” the Governor had said.
A journalist asks if she would like to meet Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, who has a strained political relationship with the Governor. Rubina mutters, “Whatever had to happen has happened. Now what?”
A police vehicle at the village in Chopra in Uttar Dinajpur where a women was publicaly beaten at a kangaroo court by a local Trinamool Congress Leader. The area remains tense since a video of the incident went viral. | Photo Credit: Debasish Bhaduri
A couple of days after the incident, she released a video to local journalists saying she had filed a complaint at the local police station against those who had made the video and forwarded it across social media platforms.
At the village in Chopra, while hundreds of residents had gathered to witness the beatings, nobody is now willing to talk about the incident or even say where or when it happened. The women disappear inside their homes when asked about the incident. The men claim they were not around. The air is tense; every outsider is looked at with suspicion. A large police contingent is posted at the local market, next to a mosque, and leaves only after the evening prayers.
Chopra is located close to the India-Bangladesh border and tucked away about 20 km from the picturesque landscape of small tea gardens, and pineapple and jute farms. There are no industries in this Muslim-majority area. Men either work in agriculture or migrate to work as labourers in other parts of the country.
Like certain other parts of the State, the region has witnessed political violence. A Communist Party of India (Marxist) worker, Mansur Alam, 23, was killed at Chopra during the panchayat polls held in July last year.
Several leaders from the Opposition parties have compared the incident to the alleged atrocities at Sandeshkhali, where people, including a woman, had alleged torture and sexual assault by a local TMC leader, Sheikh Shahjahan, earlier this year. However, unlike Sandeshkhali, where the woman had come out in protest, nobody from Chopra is willing to stand by the victims, speak about the incident, or protest against those who held the kangaroo court.
Hours after the video of the attack went viral on June 30, officials at Islampur police district lodged a suo motu case and arrested Islam. The accused has been booked under several charges, including attempt to murder and outraging the modesty of a woman.
When Islam was produced before a local court, the public prosecutor said there were 12 cases pending against him, including one in connection with the murder of Mansur.
This was not the first time that Islam has held a kangaroo court and tortured a couple for allegedly having extramarital relations. Videos being circulated on social media show a couple with hands tied, and the accused moving around them with a baton in his hand. However, no person in the video has been identified and nobody has come forward to lodge a police complaint.
A day after the video went viral, Hamidul Rahaman, the local TMC legislator, raised questions on the character of Rubina. “The woman also did commit a mistake, leaving her husband and children. She ‘became corrupt’ and was indulging in activities that society does not permit,” the Chopra MLA said, even though he admitted that the ‘punishment’ was extreme.
Shame and death
Uttam, 20, Sabita’s older son, says his mother was the family’s primary breadwinner, ensuring that her two children secured an education. “It all happened so quickly. She could not take the humiliation of the assault. We took her to the hospital, but could not save her,” Tapas says. Jasoda, Sabita’s mother-in-law, says the younger son tried to record the assault on his mother, but locals forced her and the boy inside the house.
Madan Barman husband of Sabita Barman who died by suicide after being beaten at a local kangaroo court, showing the place where his wife was assaulted. | Photo Credit: Debasish Bhaduri
The neighbourhood in Bakhravita village, not far from New Jalpaiguri railway station, consists primarily of Rajbanshis, a Scheduled Caste community. The houses look better than the ones in Chopra, but the roads have turned into a series of puddles after the monsoon showers.
People here are willing to speak, unlike in Chopra, and say what happened to Sabita should not have taken place. An Integrated Child Development Services worker, Protima Das, who grew up in the neighbourhood, says neighbours should stop interfering in other people’s lives. “If they feel something is wrong, they should involve the police,” she says.
Mob morality
Incidents of people taking the law into their own hands are not limited to Chopra and Islampur; they have been reported in several parts of the State. The common thread in all these incidents of mob violence is that the victims were poor.
On June 28, Irshad Alam, 37, a TV mechanic, was beaten to death in Kolkata’s Bowbazar area. According to the police, he was tortured with cricket bats and sticks on suspicion of mobile theft at a hostel meant for students of reserved categories. The post-mortem report revealed that he had died of internal bleeding. Fourteen people, mostly students and boarders of Udayan Hostel, located on Nirmal Chunder Street, were arrested. Irshad, who lived in a one-room tenement at the nearby Belgachia slum, has left behind two children, who have barely spoken since their father’s death; his wife wants justice.
The next day, a similar incident occurred at Bidhannagar on the north-eastern fringes of the city. Prasen Mondal, 22, died after being thrashed by a mob on a similar suspicion of stealing a mobile phone. Three persons were arrested in connection with the case.
On June 30, Sourabh Sau, 23, succumbed to injuries at Jhargram district hospital after being beaten up by a mob on June 22, the police said. He was found injured on the road by locals. The victim’s family alleged that he had been beaten up and assaulted by a group of men engaged by a contractor. They were allegedly enraged by allegations that Sau had attempted to steal parts of an earth mover parked on the roadside.
The allegation against 23-year-old Biswajit Manna from Tarakeswar was that he had stolen ₹50,000 from the house of a local businessman. A group of people dragged him out of his house in the early hours of July 1 and beat him up. After the attackers left, Manna fell unconscious and was declared dead.
Municipal Affairs and Urban Development Minister and Mayor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation Firhad Hakim expressed concerns over such attacks and said “mass hysteria can only be countered by mass counselling”.
Feeling the heat of back-to-back lynchings, the State government announced a compensation of ₹2 lakh for such deaths and a job to a family member of the deceased as a home guard in the State police. “Police authorities have been advised to exercise maximum vigil and take strong lawful actions. All sections of people should also remain vigilant,” former Chief Secretary and Adviser to the Chief Minister Alapan Bandyopadhyay said.
Five years ago, the State Assembly had passed the West Bengal (Prevention of Lynching) Bill, 2019, which was aimed at preventing mob lynching. It included compensation for victims and death sentence as the maximum penalty for offenders. Speaker Biman Banerjee says the Bill has been awaiting the Governor’s assent since August 2019.
Bose, who took charge as Governor in November 2023, says Raj Bhavan cannot be blamed for the delay. “The Governor had raised questions about several aspects of the Bill. An explanation was also sought from the State government. The Governor said that the State government had not yet given that explanation. And hence the delay,” a statement from Raj Bhavan said.
The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which has recently replaced the Indian Penal Code, has notably for the first time introduced capital punishment for the offence of mob lynching, apart from the offence being made punishable with seven years of imprisonment or life imprisonment.
Subha Protim Roy Chowdhury, who is associated with AAMRA, a study group focusing on conflict and peace studies, says in the past there have been communal overtones to lynchings, especially those associated with cattle. “However, in the recent incidents, there seems to be nothing of that sort, but a mob frenzy that cannot be tackled only by stronger laws,” he says.
Meanwhile, at the village in Chopra, Rafiq has come forward to say that he and Rubina are still together. “We want to live together as a couple,” he says, his partner by his side. They continue to live in the block despite the stigma and hostility. “We cannot think and plan much when it comes to love,” Rubina says.
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Published - July 05, 2024 12:24 am IST
