West Bengal | Lynching, thuggery demand strong action from TMC government

Since August 2019, the West Bengal (Prevention of Lynching) Bill passed by the Assembly to specifically handle lynching is awaiting gubernatorial assent

A wave of public violence since roughly the middle of June has engulfed West Bengal. Incidents of lynching and public beatings have been added to political violence, always on the boil, while a spate of armed robberies has scared the public. Confidence in law enforcement is plumbing the depths.

Political violence, especially in the wake of a hotly contested election, is expected. We shall not deal with it, as we shall not deal with violence issuing from internecine intra-party warfare. Let’s begin with constructing a kind of timeline for lynching incidents and public beatings.

On June 19, a man and a woman were apprehended by a crowd in Barasat, a town to the north of Kolkata, which suspected them of being ‘child-lifters’, as a section of the media insists on describing kidnappers. The suspicion was stoked by persistent rumours fanned by social media posts. Another man was beaten up in the area by a crowd on similar suspicions. A police contingent that tried to save the man in the second incident was attacked. Many people were arrested, including administrators of a Facebook group. Two days later, a woman living with a mental illness was beaten by a mob, in the same general area. On the same day, a young man was beaten in Barrackpore, around 15 km from Barasat, on the same suspicion, fuelled by a social media-inspired rumour.

With the contagion spreading, on June 26, a woman who was travelling on a suburban train with her eight-month-old child was assaulted by a crowd on the suspicion of being a kidnapper in the general environs of Barrackpore. She was separated from her child, but reunited a week later.

Then came a shocker in the heart of the city. On June 28, student boarders of a government hostel mercilessly assaulted a young television mechanic bang in central Kolkata. He did not survive the beating. Many students have been arrested and the hostel shuttered. The students, apparently, suspected the man of being guilty of a spate of thefts. The next day, a man was lynched by his neighbours on suspicion of theft in a northern suburb. After a brief respite, on July 7, a man was lynched on suspicion of thieving in Bhangar, 30 km south of Kolkata.

In the meantime, two incidents of public beating scarred West Bengal. In late June, Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Tajemul Islam beat up a man and woman who were allegedly in an extramarital relationship after summoning them to a salishi sabha (in context, kangaroo court). A video of the incident went viral and Islam, also referred to as JCB, was arrested on June 30. He is close to local MLA Habibur Rahaman, who initially appeared to have supported Islam, but on being pulled up by the party brass, distanced himself from the thug.

On June 30, another locally influential TMC goon, Jayanth Singh, led a mob in severely assaulting a college-going man and his mother in Ariadaha on the northern fringes of Kolkata. The motive seemed to be rivalry between two clubs. People involved were arrested straightaway, though Singh escaped, only to surrender on July 4. As more videos surfaced of violent attacks being perpetrated by Singh’s thugs, leading to more arrests, reports emerged on July 10 of a businessman being assaulted by local TMC toughs in Howrah district two days earlier after a kangaroo court was held to settle a family dispute.

The purpose of recounting the incidents in some detail is to give a sense of the scale of the problem, and to isolate some commonalities. In the cases of lynching or attempted lynching, rumour, amplified by social media, played a major role. Also, to be fair, the police and the administration acted swiftly to contain the violence and arrest perpetrators. A special task force has been set up to deal with mob violence and an advisory sent to police units on how to tackle lynching situations. Unfortunately, a Bill passed by the Assembly to specifically handle lynching — the West Bengal (Prevention of Lynching) Bill — in August 2019, is still awaiting gubernatorial assent.

Nevertheless, we must accept that this is a societal problem that has been aggravated by easy access to social media platforms. Only an awareness programme aimed at citizens to impress upon them the criminality of taking matters into their hands, which most often leads to the victimisation of innocents, can help lessen this problem. The Intelligence Branch and cybercrime cells must be more active in pre-empting the spread of rumour.

As for the likes of Singh and Islam, the TMC brass, Mamata Banerjee included, must be blamed for creating a culture of impunity, especially at hyperlocal levels. Exemplary punishment must be meted out to rein in goons masquerading as leaders.

(Suhit K Sen is author of ‘The Paradox of Populism: The Indira Gandhi Years, 1966-1977’.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.