By Ashis Biswas
It is not often that one sympathises with local vigilante initiatives, even if the objective is to ensure the ends of justice, sometimes in a rough and ready manner. However, there was a groundswell for spontaneous public support for the knots of teenage youths who, backed by their elders, initiated a physical house-to-house search to find an alleged local criminal of Bamangachi area, in north 24 Parganas, on Sunday (July 6) morning. They were looking for one Shyamal Karmakar, a known rowdy with close Trinamool Congress (TMC) connections. Not finding him in the house of his elder sister, where Shyamal was holed up with other anti-socials the night before, his pursuers ransacked the vacant building.
Shyamal and his group was reportedly involved in the gruesome killing on the night of July 4 of a young second year college student, Sourav Choudhury. Sourav’s crime: he raised his voice against the activities of Shyamal’s gang, which carried out extortion, ran illicit liquor dens, acted as musclemen for local real estate builders and virtually controlled the administration. Their protection came from a local TMC leader, who had acted on behalf of Shyamal after he had been driven out of the area earlier by the people. He had brought Shyamal back, giving an undertaking that he would “behave”. Clearly, the criminals he defended had not changed their spots.
As young Sourav protested and broke up a fight where Shyamal’s goons were roughing up a local, he became a target. On the night of July 4, the gang called Sourav out and took him away. Hours later, the next morning, the body of a young man, first mutilated and then cut up into several pieces, was found near a local level crossing. It was identified as Sourav’s.
It is worth mentioning here that during the TMC rule in Bengal, such incidents have become common. To give only one example, social activist Barun Biswas was killed by TMC-backed hooligans at Sutia because he too protested against the mushrooming of mafia-sponsored violence in his locality. His attackers were locally known and roam about freely even today. The police say they are “absconding” and have not arrested them! A TMC activist, who had similarly campaigned the activity of local criminals at Bally, Hooghly, was also killed, his party-backed attackers remaining unpunished.
The politicisation and immobilisation of the city and state police forces has reached a climax in TMC-ruled West Bengal, since 2011. There has been either no action or token action preceded by deliberately sloppy police “inquiry”, against criminals even in widely known instances of miscarriage of justice. Examples: the Kamduni rape and killing, the Raiganj college assault on the Principal, the Parui Hriday Ghosh murder case, the (self confessed) killing of 3 CPI(M) supporters by TMC MLA Manirul Islam — among others.
Subverting all considerations of Law and due process, the police have not only not arrested those accused in FIRs and mentioned by eye-witnesses, but drawn up soft bailable charges enabling them to go free. This has happened even in cases where the High Court or lower courts ordered the administration repeatedly to take action.
“Worse, police chiefs have looked the other way as officers and others lower down have made off with entire pages of written records in connection with such cases, tampering with evidence. The recent Saradha scam “investigations “by the state police is the best example. Their sole objective: to curry favour with the TMC and avoid being sent to Coventry (transferred to nowhere) by an unpredictable Chief Minister, who frequently threatens them,” says a Congress leader. “The police had been grossly manipulated by the CPI(M) in the past as well, but the rot has reached unprecedented proportions under Ms Mamata Banerjee.”
“Mamata Banerjee has emerged as the stoutest defender of criminals and history sheeters, having sprung from the Bhowanipore police lock-up men who had been arrested by her own police for disrupting public order and unruly behaviour,” says Tathagata Roy, BJP leader.”No administration can run normally where a state Chief Minister dismisses the Park Street rape case, an incident that shook the entire country, as a got-up act!”
To revert to the Bamangachi incident, local youths who were reluctant to let politicos get involved in their protests against the Sourav killing, caused no surprise as they explained their aims to media reps. “We have no faith in the TMC-run police or politicians. We will deal with Shyamal when we find him and we will continue to look for him. We handed over one of his associates to the police, but there have been no arrests since. The police instead of looking for Shyamal in his hideouts when we told them, lathi-charged us because we were protesting against Sourav’s killing. We are not shocked, we know the criminals have strong TMC links.” said Sanjeeb, Sourav’s elder brother.
For all their distrust of politicians, the youths of Bamangachi have not been able to keep them at arm’s length. Sourav’s parents confessed being BJP supporters, but their son had no political affiliations, said local people. Naturally the state BJP along with the SUC called a 12 hour bandh on Sunday and top BJP leaders like President Rahul Sinha visited the Choudhurys. Local Congress leaders and supporters did likewise.
Universally reviled and roundly condemned, TMC leaders embarked on a halfhearted damage control operation. Minister Jyotipriya Mallik and student leader Shankudeb Panda known more for their vitriolic diatribes against all opposition, promptly claimed that Sourav was “a TMC activist and had been killed by BJP workers who were conspiring against the TMC” . Panda even staged a brief gherao against the principal of the College where Sourav studied on Saturday, demanding security for students, some 20 miles away from Bamangachi! The reason was not very clear even to loyal partymen. Suffice it to say that their efforts to divert the attention of the people to unrelated issues did not cut much either with the local people or the media covering the incidents.
“In the days ahead, unless the ruling TMC gets it act together , the Chief Minister and her loyal mobs of unruly men would be facing a crisis of credibility that may threaten their present domination,” said one observer. (IPA Service)