“We were hounded by those who claimed to be our neighbours. They threw beef into our premises while we prayed. They attempted to erase us and our faith, with the police just letting it happen."

- Menoka Choudhury, victim and mother

Islamists led by Sheikh Mustafa Hossain and Sheikh Nizamuddin had attempted to murder Deepak Choudhury, his wife Menoka Choudhury, their 12-year-old daughter Deepika and 3-year-old son Om Prakash on 23, April. The Choudhury family was forced to leave their ancestral home at 134, Mahendra Bhattacharya Road, Howrah, West Bengal, to save their lives.

Sheikh Mustafa Hossain and Sheikh Nizamuddin are the neighbours of the beleaguered Choudhury family. They and several members of the Islamist mob, along with Sheikh Asif Iqbal, had assaulted Deepak and his two children. The Islamist mob and their leaders had molested Menoka Choudhury before beating her up. They assaulted her until she had lost consciousness.

A heartbroken and homeless Deepak says that Sheikh Nizamuddin had already captured a significant portion of their ancestral lands before the assault on 23 April. Mustafa Hossain, Nizamuddin and their Islamist goons had attacked and beaten up his late father for several years, attempting to drive away the Choudhury family. During one of these assaults, they forced Deepak's father to hand over all the relevant legal documents, which proved that the Choudhury family was the rightful owner of their ancestral lands.

A tearful Menoka recalls how local Islamists kept hurling bones of cows and beef inside their property during their daily puja rituals. They "forbade" the Choudhury family from performing pooja, blowing conch (sankh), ringing bells or lighting Dhoop (Incense sticks) inside their premises. Such atrocities became more frequent after the passing away of Deepak's father, as the proverbial vultures swept in.

Deepak says that despite several pleas to the Officer-in-Charge of the Chatterjee Haat Police Station in the Santragachi region, they refused to file a complaint against the Islamists committing such atrocities. Menoka and Deepak say that instead of taking appropriate action against the Islamists, the on-duty personnel of Chatterjee Haat Police Station had "advised" the Choudhury family to remove the pratimas of Devis and Devatas from their family temple and stop performing puja inside their own ancestral land.

During the latest assault on 23 April, Mustafa Hossain and Sheikh Nizamuddin had repeatedly warned the terrified Choudhury family that they would either drive them out or murder them just like the Hindu victims of Malda, Murshidabad and Pahalgam of Jammu and Kashmir. Deepak says that staying at home would have led to certain death. During the assault, Mustafa and Nizamuddin had boasted that the current political dispensation is "on their side". They further claimed that complaining to the West Bengal Police will not help the victims.

The OC of Chatterjee Haat Police Station and other on-duty police personnel had initially refused to register the complaint of the homeless Choudhury Family. Fighting back tears, Menoka Choudhury recalls the rudeness and cruelty with which policeman Gobinda Prasad had told them that policemen would not take any action. A complaint was later registered after a large number of nearby Hindu youth had surrounded the Chatterjee Hat Police Station, but no concrete action has been taken yet. Local Islamists have vandalised a section of their house and are threatening the penniless displaced Choudhury family with dire consequences if they even attempt to come near their illegally occupied ancestral property.

 West Bengal was created as a Hindu Homeland to protect Hindus from the Islamists of present-day Bangladesh. If Hindu families are tortured, persecuted and displaced from their ancestral lands simply because of their Hindu identity, it defeats the very purpose of creating the state of West Bengal. The perpetrators are not even willing to tolerate the existence of a practising Hindu family among them. It is traumatising to see West Bengal Police personnel acting as collaborators of hate, like the Ansars and Razakars of West and East Pakistan, instead of acting as guardians of the law.

Persecuted by Islamists and the State Government and ignored by a Central Government lacking the political will to take decisive action, what should the native sons and daughters of the soil do? From whom should they seek justice? If Bharat and West Bengal do not wake up now, it is not a question of whether it will become the next Kashmir but of when. 

Image provided by the author.