An 11-year-old madrasa student was beaten up in Purulia district of West Bengal on the pretext that he refused to say Jai Shri Ram. The police have initiated a probe following a complaint by the boy’s father on Thursday.
Since the declaration of the Lok Sabha election results several persons from the minority community have been beaten up in West Bengal. One youth was lynched following an allegation of motorcycle theft.
The madrasa student alleged that he was stopped on his way to the seminary in Nituria village of Purulia. First he was asked his name and then he was told to say Jai Shri Ram. As he refused, he was “brutally beaten up.”
“I was beaten for quite a few minutes before one of them said that ‘if he dies we would be in trouble’ and let me go,” the student told the local journalists. Four men were involved in the incident, the student said. The boy’s father took him back home from the madrasa and said that he is severely “traumatised.”
While the Trinamool Congress blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party for “spreading communal hatred and extremism”, BJP officials in the district said the Trinamool is “organising such incidents to tarnish the BJP’s image.”
