Kolkata: On Friday, Kolkata came together to condemn Rajasthan ‘love jihad’ murder until it was arbitrarily and suddenly called off with police arresting some of the protestors and hauling them off to Lal Bazaar Police Headquarters.
On 6th December, Mohammad Afrazul, a labourer was mercilessly killed in what can be called one of India’s most gruesome hate crimes -- amid a spate of religiously motivated killings -- in Rajsamand, Rajasthan.
The country watched in shocked and traumatized silence the video -- circulated by Afrazul’s assailant identified as Shambhulal Regar -- in which he hacks Afrazul to death with a cleaver, and then sets him on fire.
Dumbfounded India found the voice of censure moments after, as the entire country came together to shame the unfortunate incident. Bengal was not to be left behind, as the victim was originally from Kaliachak in district Malda.
Prasenjit Bose -- President of Young Bengal, a youth platform -- took the initiative with two others to organise an impromptu protest against the killing.
“It was a gruesome murder and we all watched it, to our horror. We decided we needed to have an immediate reaction and so we decided to call for a protest on Friday afternoon,” Prasenjit Bose told Deccan Chronicle.
“This was a spontaneous protest and we wanted to protest in front of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayam Sevak) office because we felt that these killings were not at random but actually inspired by dangerous ideology,” Prasenjit Bose said.
Over a hundred people gathered sloganeering against communal homicides such as Afrazul’s. The speeches at the protest condemned the killings of Pehlu Khan, who had been killed by self-styled cow-vigilantes in April, 2017; Mohammad Akhlaq Saifi, who was lynched by a mob in Dadri, in September 2015, among others.
As the crowd proceeded toward the RSS office, not far from where they had gathered Kolkata Police barricaded the roads and blocked the protestors.
Esha Talukdar, a 33-year-old filmmaker, who was present at the protest, told Deccan Chronicle, “People were resisting the barricades because it was a peaceful protest and most did not understand why the police intervened. Soon they (police) started lathicharge, pushing, pulling the protestors. They got hold of some people and took them away in a police van.”
“I was mostly recording videos. I wasn’t really shouting or behaving aggressively when a policewoman came and grabbed my hand. That’s when I started protesting and soon there were two policewomen pulling both my hands and another who began pushing me instead of answering my questions. I was taken away with a few others in a second van,” she said.
Among the protestors arrested was producer of ‘Patalghar,’ well-known filmmaker Arjun Gaurisaria.
“I got to know about the protest through a Facebook post and decided to go because I have always followed my conscience,” Gaurisaria told Deccan Chronicle.
“I was, with all of us shouting ‘we want answers, we want answers!’ The physical fracas (in which I was not physically hurt at all, though some others were) had already finished. The police stood on one side staring at us, we stood on the other, shouting. A very gentle looking policeman came up to me, put his hand on my back and said, ‘Come, uncle. Come.’ And being a bit of a nitwit, I went,” he said.
“They had picked up two innocent passers-by as well and only let them go when the protestors requested on their behalf,” Esha Talukdar said.
A total of 24 people had been rounded up and detained at Lal Bazaar Police Headquarters for almost three-and-a-half hours bringing a peaceful protest to an abrupt end.
“They first took us to Bortola Police Station where we waited without getting off the van. Then they took us to Lal Bazaar,” Esha Talukdar said. “When we asked why we were being arrested the policemen said that they didn’t know anything except that we had been picked up upon the Deputy Inspector General’s orders.”
Expressing a similar confusion, Prasenjit Bose said, “It is still not clear why – we weren’t given details. When our lawyer connected for bailing us out he was told that the matter was being handled from Bortola Police Station. We still don’t know what charges -- if any – are being pressed or if we were just detained.”
Videos posted by several people on social media show that the protestors were man-handled.
“I was taken away with 12 others so I am not sure if lathis had been used but there was a lot of jostling and pushing during the scuffle,” Bose added.
“At the police station we found out about an ABVP (Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad) protest against G D Birla School incident,” Talukdar said.
Bose called the ABVP procession “their post facto justification for the arrests.”
A cloud of uncertainty looms over the arrests of these dissenters, who had come together to rightfully berate the macabre murder of an innocent man – the fourth in nine months in the state of Rajasthan.
Organisations such as Rajasthan, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangatha, Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties, Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch, Rajasthan Nagrik Manch, National Federation of Indian Women, All India Democratic Women’s Association among others, have jointly signed a statement condemning Afrazul’s brutal murder and seeking Rajasthan Chief Minister’s resignation and Modi’s explicit opprobrium of the crime.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, publicly condemned the murder saying it was “tantamount to murder of human rights” and calling the family “totally helpless” has offered a compensation of Rs 3 lakh and a job to any eligible member from the family.
However, Mamata Banerjee has so far said nothing about the arrests made during the Kolkata protest.
“The guy (Shambhulal Regar) wanted to send a message. He wanted to threaten and I am afraid, I do feel threatened. It is already late, if we don’t speak now we may never get a chance,” Esha Talukdar said.
Here is the video:
