‘Riot-hit Basirhat will not be the same again’

The riot-hit Basirhat, some 50 km from Kolkata in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, may be limping back to normalcy, but with the “secular” fabric of the area destroyed, the mood here is sombre, even as a sense of despair and anger prevails. Internet services have been restored and schools, colleges and banks have reopened in the Basirhat sub-division, which comprises three municipalities and 90 village panchayats, after a spate of week-long communal violence earlier this month, but the scars of the riots will not be forgotten easily.

Raju Dey, who is a Hindu, sits in a makeshift paan shop at Basirhat town’s Moila Khola bazaar (market), one of the epicentres of the violence. He does not have any money to reconstruct the small shop he owns, as it was ransacked by an angry mob, allegedly belonging to the minority community. Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, he says, “On the day of Ulta Rathyatra, an angry mob belonging to the minority community, attacked several shops in this market in the evening, and one of those shops was mine. They ransacked my shop, while I ran for my life. I lost my shop and all my belongings. I have a family of five to feed, but no one came forward to help, not even the West Bengal government.”

A fruit vendor next to Raju’s shop quickly adds, “Nothing will remain the same here in this area after what they have done to us. They have destroyed the secular fabric of the area.”

Moila Khola is one of the prominent markets in Basirhat, and had turned into a battleground when communal violence broke out in the area. The rioters vandalised and torched several shops, small shacks and a 200-year-old temple in this market, and this, according to the locals, led to a backlash from the Hindu community. However, on the rainy Sunday afternoon this newspaper visited the marketplace, it was empty, with most shops closed and people staying indoors.

Rana Mondal, secretary of the Moila Khola market, tells The Sunday Guardian, “Many shops here were affected in the riot. We are trying to help rebuild the shops. We have managed to repair most of the shops. We have also identified a few from this market who were part of the mob that attacked the market. We have asked the administration to take appropriate action against them. But there is still a lot of communal animosity here. It will not be easy to erase such feelings, for a riot like this had never happened in Basirhat’s history.”

Shopkeepers at the marketplace say that they have not received any help from