Three days have passed since a mob attacked dozens of shops and houses at Ghoshpara market in the Samsherganj area of Murshidabad district in West Bengal. The remnants of violence are everywhere. All that is left on the road leading to the Samsherganj police station are shards of broken glass, pieces of plastic and wooden debris, and shops with half-open shutters and damaged goods inside.
On the afternoon of April 11, protests broke out in the region over the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, which was passed in Parliament on April 3 and 4. The law gives the government a foot in the door in regulating Waqf properties and in settling disputes regarding such properties. The agitation turned violent when a mob went on a rampage at the market, located about 200 metres from the Samsherganj police station.
Bhakat Distributors, a lottery shop, is owned by Amar Bhakat and Bharati Medical, a pharmacy, by Anirban Hossain. Both shops were severely damaged by the mob. For years, Bhakat and Hossain did business side by side. But the violence has exposed the communal fault lines in the area.
“My shop was targeted because it was owned by a Hindu,” says Bhakat, 54. “The mob smashed our computers, stole our furniture, and destroyed all the electrical appliances. They also looted the lakhs of rupees that I had stored for a payment that is due in a few days.”
Several houses were set on fire in Dhulian municipality on April 11 and 12 when protests against the Waqf (Amendment) Act turned violent.
| Photo Credit:
Debasish Bhaduri
Bhakat adds that the mob consisted of Muslims from the neighbourhood, who knew where people lived and who the shops belonged to. He and members of his extended family have fled the Dhulian municipality. Some of them have gone to Malda, about 30 kilometres away, while others have gone further, to Jharkhand.
Hossain, 42, says Muslims and Hindus have always lived in peace at Dhulian. “Even when the Babri Masjid was being demolished, there was no communal hatred or bitterness here. But that is history now,” he says.
In the violence that erupted on April 11 and 12 in Murshidabad, three people lost their lives — Hargobind Das (70) and his son Chandan Das (40), who were lynched on April 12 at Jafrabad village adjoining Dhulian municipality, and Ejaz Ahmed Sheikh (21), who died of injuries sustained in police firing, a few kilometres south of Dhulian, in Gazipur in Kashimnagar suburb.
One tragedy, different reactions
Jafrabad remains on the edge. Parul Das, who is in her 50s and has lost her husband Hargobind and son Chandan, recalls the attack again and again for journalists and politicians who visit her.
“I was here when they broke into the house,” she says, sobbing. “They dragged both of them out and hacked them to death. My son was alive for a while. We kept calling the police, but no one came.” There are now five personnel of the Border Security Force (BSF) stationed a few hundred metres from her house.
Parul Das lost her husband Hargobind and son Chandan in the violence.
| Photo Credit:
Debasish Bhaduri
Leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is in the Opposition, and members of Hindutva groups have posted photographs of the two bodies on social media and described the violence as an “attack on Hindus”. They observed Hindu Martyrs Day in Kolkata on April 16. More than 40 MLAs of the BJP joined the Leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, in demanding Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s resignation. Describing the murders as a “heinous crime”, the West Bengal Police have set up a special investigation team and made arrests from Murshidabad and adjoining districts.
Unlike the Das family, Ejaz Ahmed Sheikh’s family has no security in front of their house. Sheikh’s one-storeyed house in Gazipur is located 4 km from Sajur More on National Highway 12, where he succumbed to bullet injuries.
Middle-aged female relatives and neighbours sit on the floor in the courtyard of the house. Sheikh’s wife, who refuses to give her name, says before slamming the door shut, “We are sick of recalling the events of that day. My mother-in-law is unwell. Please leave us alone.”
Sheikh’s cousin, Azhar, rushes into the house as it begins to rain. He says Sheikh is survived by his wife and two-year-old daughter.
Banerjee has announced compensation of ₹10 lakh for the families of the deceased.
The smell of burnt wood
In the Betbona area of Dhulian municipality, scores of houses were set on fire. The smell of burnt wood and soot still lingers in the air. Betbona is primarily a Hindu neighbourhood.
CRPF personnel in Betbona village in Dhulian municipality, Murshidabad. Betbona was among the worst-affected areas of the violence that broke out on April 11 and 12 in the district.
| Photo Credit:
Debasish Bhaduri
Rita Ghosh, 32, hides the scars on her palms. She says she had to jump from the terrace of her house to escape the violence. “My elder son and husband hid inside our bedroom. I ran away with my younger son. When I came back, the whole village was up in flames, but thankfully, my husband and elder son survived,” she says.
Ghosh says the eight goats that the family had reared were charred to death. The family is left with nothing. “Before the violence, we were planning for my husband’s surgery. Now we don’t know how to survive,” she says.
Debgon Mondal, 36, and his wife Deepa, 30, cannot forget how the mob, armed with batons and sticks, entered their neighbourhood.
“We knew they would kill us if we didn’t run for our lives,” Mondol recalls. “We ran away as far as we could. When we returned, our house was up in flames. I helplessly watched it burn for three hours. We couldn’t put it out as our hand pumps and water taps were broken. We waited until the fire brigade arrived.” The house and the neighbourhood still bear visible signs of violence such as smashed electricity metres.
A resident of Betbona village shows burnt currency.
| Photo Credit:
Debasish Bhaduri
Deepa is trying to wrap her head around what happened. She says, “If they wanted to loot us, which they did, why did they have to burn our house down?”
Jawans of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) march across the village. There is an uneasy calm in the neighbourhood, where lush mango trees face blackened houses.
Bacchu Mondal sits on a wooden bed, his head still throbbing with pain. A white bandage covers his forehead and the skin on his left cheek has peeled off. His five-year-old son picks up a two-foot-long wooden stick lying near a door. He says the mob used it to beat his father up.
Mondal recalls how the mob beat him up in front of a temple. “After a while, some of them started talking about whether they should keep beating me or let me go. I sensed an opportunity and ran,” he says. When Mondal talks of how the MLA of Sagardighi, Bayron Biswas, took him to a nursing home for treatment, a few villagers immediately rebuke him. “Don’t take his name,” they say. “He is Muslim.”
A divided people
Religious polarisation has become more pronounced in West Bengal over the last few years, says Subha Protim Roy Chowdhury, a political observer who has studied the violence that has broken out during Ram Navami celebrations.
He says, “The communal violence in Murshidabad has exposed the fault lines in the State’s politics and society. Over the last few decades, we have been observing regular communal flare-ups across the State, where people of both communities have been involved.”
Almost a week before the communal clashes at Murshidabad, hundreds of high-pitched Ram Navami processions were held across the State. These processions were attended not only by BJP leaders and Hindutva groups, but also by leaders of the Trinamool Congress.
Senior police officials hint at the fact that these festivals pose a challenge. “There were many events planned (in the State) over the last 15 days and all of them were observed peacefully. The scale of mobilisation on Friday and Saturday (April 11 and 12) was high and a number of fronts were opened at the same time, so the police could not reach all the places with the same intensity,” says Jawed Shamim, Additional Director General (Law and Order), West Bengal Police.
Even before the Ram Navami processions, people had gathered to protest against the Waqf (Amendment) Act in different parts of the State. While the Chief Minister had described the riots as a “pre-planned conspiracy” and had suggested that people from Bangladesh were involved, Murshidabad had been on the boil during the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in 2019. Railway properties were attacked and railway lines were uprooted then. However, the two communities had not been pitted against one another during the CAA protests.
Roy Chowdhury says Dhulian and Samsherganj are among the most impoverished regions of the State. “Men migrate from these regions for work and women roll beedis for a living. The beedi factories are controlled by local leaders, MLAs and MPs of the Trinamool Congress,” he says.
He says the Murshidabad riots stand apart because of the sheer number of people involved and affected. As of April 17, the West Bengal Police registered 60 First Information Reports and arrested 274 people for their involvement in the violence. “This is also the first time that such a large number of people from one community had to take shelter in another district to escape violence,” says Roy Chowdhury.
No place called home
The Ganga meanders across Dhulian and Samsherganj. Across the river is Malda district. This is where the river enters West Bengal. As violence erupted in the Dhulian municipality on April 11 and April 12, hundreds of families took small ferry boats from Kanchantala ghat and Sadar ghat to Malda’s Parlalpur ghat.
Families take refuge in Parlalpur high school in Kaliachak III block, almost 1 kilometre from Parlalpur ghat, in Malda district.
| Photo Credit:
Debasish Bhaduri
Around 320 people from 58 families have taken shelter at the Parlalpur high school in Kaliachak III block, almost 1 kilometre from Parlalpur ghat. In the two-storey school, 3-4 families share a classroom. Those who have taken refuge are mostly women and children, as the men are away in other States working as migrant workers.
The Malda district administration has made arrangements for a community kitchen. The camp is frequented by local Hindu religious organisations, who distribute clothes, dry fruits, mosquito nets, and other essentials.
Kalpana Mondal, a resident of ward 7 of Dhulian, who has taken shelter in the camp, is upset that she has not received a mosquito net. “I don’t know why I am not getting any of these items. The other day, some people distributed sarees and dhotis. The day before that, they distributed gamchas (cloth covering); I didn’t get those either. If my sons were at home, I would not have left even after the violence,” she says.
As her three sons work as migrant workers, Kalpana fled from Dhulian with six goats to the camp on April 11. The middle-aged woman has left the animals at a relative’s place near the camp. Like many others, she refuses to go home until BSF personnel are stationed at the municipality permanently. On April 12, the Calcutta High Court directed the deployment of CAPF personnel in violence-affected areas.
Protima Mondal is hoping to find some work in the school so that she does not have to return to Dhulian. “I have nothing left there. My house was set on fire,” she says.
Families wait in queue to receive releief in Pallalpur high school in Malda district.
| Photo Credit:
Debasish Bhaduri
A woman from Dhulian has just received a mosquito net from a Hindu religious organisation. She regularly receives calls from her son, who works in another city, urging her to go back home. She whispers that her daughter-in-law, who is staying in the camp with her, is Muslim. She says if the people in the camp come to know about this, she might face issues. “Initially, we did not accept the marriage. But what could I do when they were in love? I am from a part of Dhulian where we are surrounded by more Muslim than Hindu families. She is one of us now. I have even given her a Hindu nickname,” she says.
The district administration has also set up a small medical desk to provide medical aid. However, for some elderly people who require specialised medicine and care, these are not enough.
A number of leaders from political parties, including State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar, have visited the camp and offered to help those displaced by the violence. Majumdar also held protests with a number of displaced people outside the West Bengal Police headquarters in Kolkata on April 16. The next day, he met Governor C.V. Ananda Bose with a group of victims.
While the State administration insists that the situation is slowly returning to normal and people who have taken shelter in the camps are going back home, on April 17, the Governor decided to meet the violence-affected people despite the Chief Minister urging him to postpone his visit.
The West Bengal Police claimed on April 17 that 85 people had returned to Dhulian and 70% of the shops had been re-opened.
But for some, there are still no signs of normalcy. Farida Bibi, 60, hovers anxiously in the Samsherganj police station. She says two of her sons, Kokhan Sheikh, 32, and Milan Sheikh, 28, were picked up by the police. “They were working on the construction of our house this morning when the police came and picked them up,” she adds.
On spotting a police van entering the police station carrying a dozen young men, Farida turns quiet. “They are not here,” she says and resumes her search.
moyurie.som@thehindu.co.in
This piece was edited by Radhika Santhanam
Published – April 19, 2025 02:44 am IST
