Busy for weeks, criss-crossing India and spending a million words on demonetisation — that has reportedly caught many of her senior party colleagues off guard — Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has finally tossed a one-liner on the communal riot and its tense aftermath in her own backyard in village off Howrah.
She has rejected reports of any violence which was allegedly sparked by Jamaat groups that left many victims from another community injured and homeless.
With the State police pouring ashes over Dhulagarh embers, Banerjee has forcefully iterated, “nothing has happened anywhere.” When asked to repeat her comment on the present law and order situation in the area an irritated Chief Minister who had just returned from Delhi late on Wednesday evening hurled another one-liner: “You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Even as the media failed to grasp the homily and feel ashamed asking whether the victims were being helped to return home even after a fortnight of the incident, she threw a glowing glance heading for her vehicle.
About 60 houses and shops were devastated following communal riots-that eyewitness allege a “one-sided assault,” between December 12 and 15 before the police allegedly descended to effect a cover-up making fake arrests.
Though locals allege the violence was the result of “expansionist tendency of land sharks belonging to one community” that have been successfully using its political lever with the ruling Trinamool the immediate trigger for the violence was over the route of a religious procession on December 12, the birth anniversary of Prophet Mohammed.
The violence peaked the next day when residents from religious educational institutions run by one community invaded the area. Some criminals resorted to bombing, arson, looting and sexual assault.
locals allege properties in cash, jewellry, pumping sets, generators, power-tillers, bullock carts worth crores were either looted or torched.
Though the Opposition demanded arrest of the culprits not a single political party was allowed to enter the area. A fact-finding team led by BJP MPs was stopped by the police last week from entering the area while another procession led by the left Front early this week was also not allowed an entry.
BJP spokesperson Siddharthnath Singh said, “The situation is very serious and the ruling party’s minority cell is actively complicit in the riots. These are also areas where the BJP has been getting traction and where our workers are also being physically intimidated.”
While the BJP blamed the Chief Minister for her “blind appeasement of minorities” to buttress her vote-bank politics, the left called it a “mutually serving tactic employed by the TMC and BJP to divide votes.”
They threatened to return in a few days “if the Government fails to restore peace and reinstate the displaced victims in the area.”
Meanwhile locals demanded a probe into the riots by National Human Rights Commission. “We demand a suo motu cognizance by NHRC. If is done in a few then we will take locals to Delhi to seek an inquiry,” a local advocate said.