Hindu Persecution in Budge Budge Gets All Time High in West Bengal

There is a well-known aphorism “A debt should be paid off till the last penny, and an enemy should be destroyed till last trace.” What may happen if the reverse takes place even for once? The answer is simple – the concerned debtor would meet disaster in due course and a person performing the mistake of pardoning an enemy would be destroyed by the same adversary. Perhaps you have already started to think what makes this scribe incorporate all these issues here. There is a greater issue as well. Have you ever found members of any majority community being persecuted in any country? The topic may be baffling to you but it is a reality and to know it well, all you have to do is to come to Village Jamalpur P.S.: Budge Budge, 24 Paraganas (South), West Bengal. The persecuted Hindu family is of the Purakaits.

What started off as a minor scuffle related to the ownership of a piece of land has become a major instrument for oppressing Hindus by local, neighbouring Muslims, and to one’s amazement, segregation is in full swing under the aegis of a handful of Muslims. What are the Hindus in the vicinity doing then? Ground reports do confirm to the existence of merely 12 Hindu families in the neighbourhood in opposition to 100 Muslim families, if not more. And the outcome is too evident. All the Hindu families are suffering major harassment at the hand of the neighbouring Muslim families. So one begs to ask, what lead to the legal entanglement?

Here is a brief account of the past happening: the original owner of the land was a woman of the same Purakait family who gifted the land her own nephew. The nephew, no less than 30 years ago, was in need of money and so he mortgaged 10 cottah (60 cottah = 1 acre) of his land to a Hindu. He finally paid back the mahajan (rural moneylender), but the mahajan illegally sold the land to a Muslim who was a school teacher by profession. Eventually the Muslim individual went on to build a house on the same land and has been living there for close to 28 years at a stretch. As per Purakaits, at the moment, 15 katha (1/4 acre) of land has been occupied by the Muslim family illegally.

There is also a Manasa “thaan” (small family owned temple dedicated to local Deity) on that forcibly acquired land “dakhali” land (conquered land in rural dialect). Recently the Muslim “dakhaldar” (illegal occupier, in local dialect) built a wall to thwart local Hindus from going to the Manasa temple. When the Hindus protested, Muslims “staged” the whole incident to look like an attack by Hindus. They broke the wall themselves, pretended to get sick and staged a siege by Hindus. In accordance with the persecuted family, a Muslim inspector called Ali Babu helped the Muslims to stage such fake incidents. After the staged incident, they went to police station and filed a case against all 14 Hindu men. The situation made the already poor situation even worse for the resident Hindus and forced the male members of the Purakait family flee as they were threatened with dire consequences, affecting the financial condition of the family a great deal. Even when Hindus appealed for help to local political parties like CPIM & TMC, there was none whatsoever.

Only then, they sought assistance from Hindu Samhati and with its help, they could return after spending days wandering. When a team of Hindu Samhati volunteers went to the spot on 6th November, 2010, to take stock of the situation, they found that a calf was tied alongside the aforementioned sanctified Manasa “thaan” for ritual Islamic slaughter, an act considered abominable in Hindu religion and to be prohibited at all costs. This essentially was a challenge thrown by the local Islamic community to the resident Hindus to prohibit the dominant Muslims from desecrating the Hindu temple by cow slaughter, an act that often forces Hindus to leave their places of residence. It is to be noted that cow slaughter in Baker Eid has already been banned by the Honorable Supreme Court of India. While talking to the Hindu Samhati correspondents, members of the Purakait family clarified that foremost objective of Muslims has always been complete eviction of Hindus from the neighborhood.

Hindus are determined to get back their own legitimate land and are determined to fight off all adversities no matter what. Hindu Samhati is also helping the Hindus obtain drinking water that has become difficult due to continuous persecution.

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