Murshidabad Waqf Bill Protest: Families Mourn Loved Ones Amid Violent Clashes and Police Inaction
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The state administration reports that more than 150 persons have been taken into custody thus far. After the attacks began, we continued to phone the police. Nobody responded. On Sunday, 32-year-old Pinki Das, holding her six-year-old daughter on her lap, stated, “The bodies lay near our house for three hours even after they hacked my husband and father-in-law to death.” Das could hardly speak, seeming to faint momentarily between sentences. Her father-in-law Hargobind Das (70) and husband Chandan Das (40) were hacked to death by a mob on Friday when demonstrations against the new Waqf (Amendment) Act in West Bengal descended into violence in the Murshidabad district. At least 15 police officers were hurt in Friday’s assault, which also claimed the lives of the father and son. The Central Armed Forces were later sent to the impacted districts by an order from the Calcutta High Court. The state administration reports that more than 150 persons have been taken into custody thus far. “Who is going to be fair to me? Now, how are we going to live?” Recalling the “harrowing” times when her house in Jafrabad village, which is under the Samserganj police station, was looted, Pinki was asked. Pinki’s inquiries reverberated in a different home in the Gazipur neighborhood of Kashimnagar village, which is under the Suti police station, some 20 kilometers away. “Justice is what I desire,” Selima Bibi, cradling her sole kid, a two-year-old daughter, remarked. “My husband was so young.” During Friday’s protests, Selima’s husband, Ejaz Ahmed, 21, was allegedly murdered by police firing at the Sajurmore crossing on NH 12, which is ten minutes away from her home. It was discovered serious damage to Pinki’s home when it went there: the main door and windows were damaged, and the rooms were looted. Locals claim that the violence on Friday was concentrated in this village. Three residences and the cars of multiple residents were among the rows of homes targeted by stones that were reported in this newspaper. A member of the Tinpukuria gram panchayat, which is where Pinki’s village is located, Sraboni Das (24), claimed that after the mob was unable to get in, they also set fire to her home. Das, a local Congress leader, stated, “We are afraid and don’t know whether we will ever be able to live here again.” Amirul Islam, a Samserganj TMC MLA, and Uttam Kumar Das, a BJP block chairman, were spotted together on Sunday close to Pinki’s residence. “These people are animals.” “We support the family,” Islam declared. Numerous Hindu homes and businesses were plundered, burned, and vandalized. “Many other villages also experienced this,” Das said. Pinki said that groups of “young men” began wandering the area at around ten in the morning on Friday, throwing stones and homemade bombs at homes. They made four attacks on our home. “They finally succeeded in smashing through the wooden door,” she stated. A group of them grabbed my father-in-law and led him outside while others began to loot the house, room by room. Then they took hold of my spouse. They killed them both with hacking. Pinki, who also has two kids, ages 16 and 11, said, “I begged (the attackers) and held their feet, but they threatened to kill me.” “We were powerless. The kids and I went to the terrace, where I hid. The kids are now searching for their father and grandfather,” Pinki’s mother-in-law Parul Das said, adding that Chandan was a mason and her husband was a farmer who possessed “a few bighas” of land. Meanwhile, on Sunday, a sizable crowd had gathered outside Selima’s house. “After the death, neither a politician nor a police officer came to our house. We were informed at the hospital that the body will be turned over following a post-mortem,” according to Ejaz’s uncle Shahid Sheikh. Ejaz was scheduled to depart on Sunday for Chennai, where he was employed at a hotel, according to Selima. On March 28, he had returned home for Eid. He went to see an uncle in Islampur on Friday morning. He got caught up in the mayhem at Sajurmore on his way home. “From there, someone called us and said that the cops had shot him,” she added. Ejaz was taken by a group of locals to the adjacent Jangipur hospital before being sent to the major hospital in Murshidabad, where he passed away from his wounds. Ejaz shared a home with his mother, wife, daughter, and father. “We went to a picnic with him on Thursday evening. He was a huge football fan. We learned he was shot dead on Friday,” according to 22-year-old Odudh Sheikh, an old friend of Ejaz’s. Senior police authorities confirmed the three deaths. On Sunday, the Sajurmore crossing was manned by a sizable police, Rapid Action Force, and BSF detachment. A government bus,