Sitting in a dark, cramped gymnasium, Sudhir Mondal (name changed), an activist of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), who had to flee his village Abhirampur in central Howrah, narrated his ordeal.
“About 200 armed cadres of the Trinamool Congress entered my house and smashed the roof of two rooms and threw all the furniture outside. I left through the back doorand entered a large thicket behind the house,” Mr. Mondal told The Hindu .
Mr. Mondal was attacked on May 21, following the declaration of the Assembly poll results. His offence — like many others forced to leave their homes — was that he supported the Opposition bloc of the Left and the Congress.
Mr. Mondal said that from the thicket he saw the Trinamool cadres setting the granary on fire. “They looted 35 sacks of paddy, Rs. 30,000 and the pump used for irrigation.” Mr. Mondal’s mother and his brother’s children are now living in a relative’s house outside Howrah.
“What is my fault,” he asks. His neighbour, Samir Pakhira [name changed], another Left Front supporter hiding in the same gymnasium of a party sympathiser, provides the answer.
“The threats started during the polls. The Trinamool workers used to tell us that after the results, we would rue our support to the CPI(M),” Mr. Pakhira said.
The CPI(M) workers of the area further alleged that the Trinamool-backed goons were threatening to “rape the women of their family.”
CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakravarty, who won the elections claimed that the post-poll violence had displaced many thousands in Bengal.
“Nearly 25,000 workers of the Left and the Congress are homeless due to attacks by the Trinamool,” Mr. Chakravarty said.
Baseless, says ruling party
The Trinamool leadership, however, termed the allegations “baseless and politically motivated”. Party’s Howrah district president and Minister Arup Roy said: “The CPI(M) cadres fled the area fearing public outrage as they had unleashed terror there before the polls.”
“These allegations are nothing but ramblings. If they are facing such atrocities, why are they not lodging FIRs?” Samir Kumar Panja, the Trinamool MLA from Udaynaryanpur, said.
Such political violence, however, is not new to Udaynarayanpur, an erstwhile Left bastion. After the Trinamool ousted the Left Front in the State in the 2011 Assembly polls, nearly 600 Left Front workers fled the area due to alleged attacks by the Trinamool. Local CPI(M) workers alleged that a party zonal committee member was murdered by the ruling party supporters.
The Opposition, however, alleged that across the State, houses of the Left and Congress workers were “gutted, shops were looted and livelihood was ruined.”
A memorandum was also submitted to the Director-General of Police by the district leadership of the united opposition detailing losses incurred by the victims. Mr. Mondal’s name also features in the list.
