Around 10.15 pm on Wednesday, Champa Chakraborty thought she heard the bang of a firecracker going off nearby. But moments later, the commotion that ensued outside her hut made it clear that the sharp sound had signalled something more tragic.
Two assailants had shot dead Chandranath Rath, the executive assistant to Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari, a few metres away from Chakraborty’s home in a narrow lane 6 km north of Kolkata airport.
Adhikari, the leader of the opposition in the outgoing West Bengal Assembly, is seen by many as a frontrunner for the post of chief minister.
The murder of his close aide heightened tensions in Kolkata and its suburbs, which have been reeling under the impact of political violence since the BJP swept the state elections on Monday. By Wednesday, the state police had arrested 433 people and filed 200 first information reports in cases of post-election violence across West Bengal, The Indian Express reported.
About 1,100 people have been taken into preventive custody.
The violence has left four people dead across the state.
Chakraborty, who works in a garment factory for Rs 200 a day, admitted that she felt afraid, given that the unrest had reached her doorstep. “We poor people have nothing to do with all this,” she said. “No party does anything for us.”
When Scroll visited the area on Thursday morning, the police had cordoned off the site where the assassination had taken place. Shattered glass from the window of the car in which Rath was travelling still lay on the ground. A team of officers from the Border Security Force had come to examine the spot, setting the neighbourhood and all the visiting journalists abuzz.
“Don’t go too close,” Chakraborty told Rahul, her 25-year-old son who was meandering close to the action.
About 200 metres away, Arijit Das thanked the gods that the police officers on duty had allowed him to take his bicycle past the assassination spot earlier in the morning. He works at a meat shop in a lane close by. If the police had not relented and let him breach the cordon, he would have had to forgo his wages – Rs 500 for a day’s work.
“When such things happen, it is only the poor who suffer,” Das contended. “The rich are hardly affected.”
Over 20 km away, residents of the predominantly Muslim locality of Topsia worried that the murder of a man close to such a major BJP politician would worsen the situation.
“After last night, there will be more problems,” rued Faizan Hayat, a bike-taxi driver who is on the lookout for a job that pays a steady salary. “Things had just started to get better.”
On Tuesday night in Topsia, a group of BJP workers had reportedly got into a scuffle with their counterparts in the Trinamool Congress. Residents told Scroll that the men from the Hindutva party had allegedly come to vandalise a Trinamool office in the area.
“They wanted to come in, tear up any Trinamool posters they found and take over its office just like they have done elsewhere,” said Firoz Shah, 40, who owns a footwear manufacturing business. “Many residents came out to stop them. Ultimately, the police intervened and dispersed everybody.”
Topsia is in the Kasba Assembly constituency. Though several other Kolkata seats swung to the BJP, Javed Ahmed Khan, a cabinet minister in the Mamata Banerjee government and a four-term MLA, won the seat again this time.
After the scuffle on Tuesday night, videos emerged on social media that showed the MLA trying to pacify the crowd. Shah, the footwear manufacturer, was of the view that Khan and his supporters had saved the day for the neighbourhood. However, he was bracing himself for more Hindutva trouble in the future.
Already, he had heard from friends and relatives that in the leather manufacturing hub of Bhojerhat, BJP workers were allegedly asking people to stop dealing in cow leather. “Bakr Id is less than 20 days from now,” he pointed out, referring to the Eid-al-Adha festival as part of which many Muslims sacrifice goats. “They will certainly create some problems then.”
In and around New Market, the iconic 150-year old commercial complex in central Kolkata, even those who have nothing to do with cattle complain that business in Kolkata has been sluggish for days. Mohammed Ishaque, a native of Aurangabad, Bihar, has sold soft drinks and cigarettes outside the market since 1985.
He recalled that elections have always meant bad news for shopkeepers like him. But, usually, footfall would pick up quickly once the results came out. This time, though, even after three days, New Market still felt “sunsaan”, desolate.
Before Ishaque could finish explaining how these polls were different, his phone rang. The news of the political violence in Bengal had reached Bihar and a worried relative was calling to ask if he was alright. “Nothing has happened to me,” he responded. “Just the party office.”
Across the road from his shop stood a Trinamool Congress office, or what remained of it. On Tuesday night, BJP supporters had organised a procession to celebrate the party’s victory in the elections. In the procession was a bulldozer, a vehicle that has become a Hindutva symbol of extrajudicial action, especially against Muslims.
When the procession reached this spot in New Market, participants used the machine to tear down the office. Now, a BJP flag flutters over its caved-in asbestos roof.
But few voiced sympathy for the Trinamool workers who used to occupy the office before Tuesday. “You reap as you sow,” said Nasir Khan, who runs his tea business out of a shop next door. In his opinion, the party’s cadres had lost connection with people over the years and were only interested in extorting chanda, “donations”.
The problem, Khan said, went back to the communist years in Bengal. The same set of people ruled the streets by operating through such offices, no matter which party was in power.
Going by the word of rickshaw drivers in and around Kolkata, it appears that the BJP, too, has adopted these tactics. Soon after the election results came out on Monday, BJP flags appeared on rickshaws and buses in the city. When Scroll asked an e-rickshaw driver where the BJP flag on his vehicle came from, he lost his cool.
“Everybody knows,” he retorted. “People wanted a clean government that is why they voted for change. But this feels the same. In just two days, they started doing the same things.”
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