Even as parts of riot-torn Murshidabad limped back to normalcy anti-Waqf Act protests traveled to Bhangar a notorious rural block in the eastern suburban areas of Kolkata where hundreds of Muslim protesters attacked the police and torched at least 6 vehicles including motorcycles and prison vans injuring five men in uniform.
The Monday’s situation emerged when Murshidabad had barely started to limp back to normalcy after a weeklong violence that saw hundreds of families leaving the district and taking shelter to neighbouring Malda and even in Jharkhand.
The trouble started after the protesters’ vehicles were stopped by the law-enforcers from moving towards Ramlila Maidan in Kolkata where Muslim cleric-turned legislator Naushad Siddiqui — the lone non-Trinamool Congress-non-BJP MLA in Bengal Assembly — had called a rally against the new central laws. Siddiqui represents Indian Secular Front a new party mainly comprising Muslim populace.
A large contingent of Rapid Action Force was moved from Kolkata under senior IPS officer Rupesh Kumar to control the unruly mob, sources said adding the protestors pelted stones at the police and tore through the barricades near Bhojerhat on the Basanti Highway. The miscreants had come from Shonepur area of Bhangar as well as neighbouring areas of Minakhan and Sandeshkhali sources said.
Siddiqui however blamed the violence on “some mischief mongers who had pelted stones from the crowd,” adding “ISF workers are always trained to take part in non-violence movement… This law is not just an attack on Muslims, it is an assault on the Constitution. We won’t accept this Act,” he said adding if Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was true to her statement that she was against this Act then “why her police are not allowing us to hold rallies in protest … why are they stopping our men from coming to Kolkata.”
However TMC MLA Shaukat Molla from the neighbouring Canning constituency said it were all Siddiqui’s men who had committed the mischief. “We have repeatedly told that this law has been enacted by the Centre and the TMC has nothing to do with it … if he has courage he should go to Delhi to protest and not here in Bengal,” Molla said. Curiously like in Murshidabad the police tended to stand silent spectators while the miscreants snatched their motorbikes, sprinkled petrol and set them on fire alongside a prison van. “Despite a commensurate High Court order to deal with the situation with the help of central forces the Mamata Banerjee Government is sitting silent because she cannot annoy her votebank … whereas in Uttar Pradesh or other places the police give such lessons to miscreants and in such places that they remember that for years,” said Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar.
