Recently, violence had erupted in elements of West Bengal over Ram Navami Processions. Several autos had been torched in Howrah district.
| Photo Credit: DEBASISH BHADURI
At least 65 cases had been registered over communal violence in varied elements of West Bengal in simply 18 months between January 2021 and June 2022. While 30 cases had been registered in 2021, 35 had been filed in the primary six months of 2022.
The knowledge was collected via Right to Information (RTI) queries filed with a number of police commissionerates and police districts throughout the State by RTI activist Biswanath Goswami. Only 12 police commissionerates and police districts offered knowledge on cases associated to communal violence and riots.
Howrah Rural Police District registered 28 cases (13 in 2021 and 15 until June 2022), the best filed over communal violence in the span of 18 months. Krishnanagar Police in West Bengal’s Nadia district recorded 13 cases whereas Asansol Durgapur Police Commissionerate stood third with 10.
Mr. Goswami, a socio-legal researcher, had additionally sought particulars on cases associated to communal rioting throughout these police commissionerates and districts. The responses revealed that there have been 200 cases of rioting in the 18-month interval. While 2021 noticed 129 such cases, the primary six months of 2022 witnessed 71.
Howrah Rural Police topped this checklist too, with 70 cases reported, and had been adopted by their Howrah City counterparts who had filed 59 cases.
The activist additionally revealed that communal violence claimed a minimum of eight deaths in 2021 whereas 11 folks misplaced their lives until the tip of June 2022.
“The figures are interesting in the light of recent incidents during Ram Navami processions at Shibpur in Howrah and Rishra in Hooghly district. A large number of communal flare-ups go unreported in media,” rued the RTI activist.
“Certain RTI replies I received provided month-wise break-ups and the highest number of communal cases were observed between the months of March and May and October to November,” Mr. Goswami additional identified.
According to the activist, there was no data from a number of police districts together with Murshidabad and Birbhum whereas Malda Police gave “contradictory replies”.
“While the RTI queries revealed a number of incidents of communal violence, it was surprising that the National Crime Record Bureau [NCRB] report for the year 2021 had reference to only one such incident in the entire State. This is a classic example of data suppression and manipulation by the State,” Mr. Goswami added.
Political observer Biswanath Chakraborty stated that the excessive incidence of communal violence is a mirrored image of “competitive communal politics” of the Trinamool Congress and the BJP. “After the Trinamool tried its brand of ‘appeasement’ with honorarium to minority communities, the BJP and its allies have found the soil of West Bengal fertile for Hindutva politics. We have seen riots at Asansol, Basirhat, Dhulagarh, Malda and now regular communal flare-ups on Ram Navami,” Prof. Chakraborty, who teaches Political Science at Rabindra Bharati University, stated.
