In yet another incidence of growing intolerance towards minorities in India, a 27-year-old Muslim student Rezaul Islam Mondal was brutally assaulted and humiliated allegedly by a Hindutva extremist group on a Sealdah-bound train in West Bengal.
The incident reportedly unfolded near Payradanga station. The attackers thrashed the young Muslim man, pulled his beard, and threatened to throw him off the train, accusing him of being a “Bangladeshi,” The Observer Post reported.
The incident took place when Rezaul, a final-year M Tech student at Aliah University and a native of Meshera village of Hooghly district was returning from the Bishwa Ijtema, a religious gathering, that was held in Bangladesh with four friends on the local train from Gede station to Sealdah.
Rezaul explained that the confrontation began when a passenger asked him to take away his trolley bag from the luggage compartment which he proceeded to do. Shortly after, a group of men staged an attempt to remove him from his seat. When he resisted, the attackers encircled him and hurled communal slurs aggressively calling him a “Bangladeshi”.
Rezaul further recounted the moment, stating that one of the attackers, named Ajay, taunted him and questioned what were his reasons for leaving Bangladesh while claiming that the country had plans to attack India. Despite Rezaul’s explanation that he was an Indian citizen, the mob launched an attack on him.
During an hour-long attack, several men thrashed and kicked Rezaul continuously. Attackers ripped his skull cap off his head and pulled his hair and beard while shouting communal slurs at him. At one point, some attackers allegedly urged others to toss him off the moving train.
When his friend Sajid Mirza attempted to record the assault he received threats from the perpetrators. Sajid said that his phone was snatched by the attackers who threatened to push him off the train if he recorded any video, accusing them of being “uneducated militants destroying India”.
Delayed police response
Following the attack, Rezaul visited a hospital to receive medical care and then pursued the process of reporting to the police. However, Haripal police station officers denied accepting his legal complaint.
Rezaul then approached Sealdah Government Railway Police (GRP) on February 5 and filed a police complaint.
The authorities filed a case under sections 115(2) and 299 351(2) and 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The railway police launched an investigation. A police official said, “We are investigating this incident and will conduct necessary legal actions.”
Politicians, activists respond
The violent incident has led to widespread outrage and condemnation. Lawyer and CPI MP Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya linked the incident to rising communal polarization by attributing the pattern of such acts to states influenced by Hindutva politics.
He added that West Bengal has been significantly influenced by RSS ideology creating religious divisions across the state. He urged the development of an intense secular movement as the required solution to disrupt this destructive pattern.
ISF MLA Peerzada Nawsad Siddique stated that attacks on minorities because of their religious markers are unacceptable in democratic spaces.
“What is the crime of Rejaul Islam? He has a beard and a cap on his head, is that his crime? That’s why he must be physically assaulted with a terrorist tap. He has to be abused? Even the soil of Bengal is not spared from the hatred that the Hindutva BJP government is cultivating all over the country. The Trinamool Congress government of this state is also helping on this matter. Using Muslims as a ‘Captive Vote Bank’, this group is pushing their Hindutvaists into extreme communal attacks. A portion of the mainstream media continues to fuel this hate spreading,” Siddique wrote on Facebook.
The Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) and human rights organizations from various groups strongly denounced the attack. APDR General Secretary Ranjit Sur explained that attacks like these represent only a minor part of growing systematic divisions as political parties and some media outlets transform the state into an active communal conflict zone.
All Bengal Minority Youth Federation leader Mohammad Kamruzzaman warned that Muslim youth will continue to face attacks on trains unless authorities take proper intervention against these events.
Journalist and activist Moktar Hossain Mondal stated that communal narratives resulted in violent attacks against minorities which were previously shocking in trains but are now disturbingly frequent.
