Why Basirhat Burned

Both the TMC and RSS blame it on ‘cattle-smuggling jehadis’

- Romita Datta

On the sixth day of the communal flare up in Baduria and Ba­sirhat, a speared­through­the­ middle flex hoarding of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee aling for harmony, was still standing amid the gutted remains of shops, police vehicles and a palpable sense of fear.

Mahmud Ali Ghazi’s medicine shop—one of the 14 torched at the Bank of India building in Basirhat’s Trimonihaat area—is charred beyond repair. A short distance away, Banerjee Babu’s popular tea stall looked equally ravaged. A mob—mostly outsiders, he says—looted the place even as the police personnel stood and watched.

An objectionable Facebook post by a Class IX student in Baduria, a neighbouring town, was said to have sparked off the violence that continued unabated for a week from July 3 night, resulting in one death.