Why Basirhat Burned
Both the TMC and RSS blame it on ‘cattle-smuggling jehadis’
On the sixth day of the communal flareup in Baduria and Basirhat, a spearedthroughthemiddle flex hoarding of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appealing for harmony, was still standing amid the gutted remains of shops, police vehicles and a palpable sense of fear.
Mahmud Ali Ghazi’s medicine shop—one of the 14 torched at the Bank of India building in Basirhat’s Trimonihaat area—is charred beyond repair. A short distance away, Banerjee Babu’s popular tea stall looked equally ravaged. A mob—mostly outsiders, he says—looted the place even as the police personnel stood and watched.
An objectionable Facebook post by a Class IX student in Baduria, a neighbouring town, was said to have sparked off the violence that continued unabated for a week from July 3 night, resulting in one death.
Baduria, Basirhat, Deganga and Swarupnagar, in North 24 Parganas district, have been a virtual tinderbox since 2009 when local strongman Haji Nurul won the Basirhat Lok Sabha seat for the Trinamool Congress. Communal clashes have become commonplace
LOCAL ASHRAF ALI SAYS MOST OF THE LOOTERS HAD NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE IN THE AREA
since then. Sajal Dhar, a local furniture shop owner, pins much of the blame on the largescale illegal immigration and the cattle smuggling racket centred in neighbouring Bangladesh.
West Bengal food minister Jyoti Priyo Mullick insists the Facebook post had nothing to do with the flareup. “The account was fake,” says the minister, claiming the trouble was triggered by fundamentalists from Bangladesh following the TMC government’s crackdown on the highly lucrative cattle smuggling racket. According to him, it was rampant—reportedly generating Rs 4050 crore a day—along the 100 km border in North 24 Parganas district.
Interestingly, for once, the TMC and its saffron rivals are on the same page. RSS general secretary Jishnu Basu also blames the “Islamic fundamentalists”. He claims the All India Sunnat Al Jamayat, a local social welfare trust, and the terror outfit HarkatulMujahideen, are in cahoots in running the cattle smuggling operation. Basu also accuses the TMC leaders of being involved, claiming what really triggered off the troubles was differences over sharing the spoils. Meanwhile, a leaflet, purportedly circulated by Jamayat secretary Abdul Matin, which sought to legitimise the violence in light of the FB post, has also sparked trouble. Local resident Ashraf Ali says most of those involved in the rampage had never been seen before in the locality. Minister Mullick claims they were crossborder ‘jehadis’, saying the state police has phone conversations on tape to prove it.
Meanwhile, BJP leaders blame the TMC’s Muslim appeasement policy for the situation, saying the state police failed to act. Mamata admits the district administration wasted a night trying to convince the rioters to back off. Her defence is that “hundreds would have died if the police had opened fire”. It was five days before Mamata finally ordered a crackdown on the violent mobs.