The Script of Violence

Amidst legal and political battles against the new Waqf Act, violent protests by a section of Muslims in Murshidabad sharpen societal polarisation

- Snigdhendu Bhattacharya

SHANKAR Pal's modest two-storied house stands ruined on one side of the narrow lane. Burnt and broken items are heaped outside-parts of a TV set, a refrigerator door. The house doors are open. The window grills broken. Inside, the shelves and wardrobes lay in pieces. Next to the house, shops owned by Nitya Pal and Narayan Pal are gutted. A silvery shine from dumped cooking utensils darkly glints from a dry and dirty pond nearby.

Life is no longer normal at Dighori Palpara, where most houses are onestoried. This is a neighbourhood marked by visible economic backwardness. The Pal families left their homes on the evening of April 12, when the Border Security Force personnel came to rescue them over five hours after the attack. The empty houses seemingly imposed an uneasy quiet on the locality. People still speak in hushed tones.

The district is Murshidabad, which hosts India's largest Muslim population-47 lakh, as per the 2011 census. They form two-thirds of the district's population. Muslims had been protesting in different neighbouring areas since President Droupadi Murmu gave her assent to the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2025, on April 5. Protesters had clashed with the police on highways and streets and vandalised public properties. Two Muslim youths were critically injured in police firing at a place a few kilometres away the previous evening.

But at Dighori, Zafrabad, Ranipul and Bedbona, none sensed any danger at home. Here, Hindus and Muslims live so close to each other that it is impossible to tell a Hindu household from a Muslim one from outside without prior knowledge. They lived peacefully. Yet, the mobs that descended on these neighbourhoods on the morning of April 12 selectively targeted Hindu houses.