At least 65 cases were registered over communal violence in various parts of West Bengal in just 18 months between January 2021 and June 2022. While 30 cases were registered in 2021, 35 were filed in the first six months of 2022.
The data was collected through Right to Information (RTI) queries filed with several police commissionerates and police districts across the State by RTI activist Biswanath Goswami. Only 12 police commissionerates and police districts provided data on cases related to communal violence and riots.
Howrah Rural Police District registered 28 cases (13 in 2021 and 15 till June 2022), the highest filed over communal violence in the span of 18 months. Krishnanagar Police in West Bengal’s Nadia district recorded 13 cases while Asansol Durgapur Police Commissionerate stood third with 10.
Mr. Goswami, a socio-legal researcher, had also sought details on cases related to communal rioting across these police commissionerates and districts. The responses revealed that there were 200 cases of rioting in the 18-month period. While 2021 saw 129 such cases, the first six months of 2022 witnessed 71.
Howrah Rural Police topped this list too, with 70 cases reported, and were followed by their Howrah City counterparts who had filed 59 cases.
The activist also revealed that communal violence claimed at least eight deaths in 2021 while 11 people lost their lives till the end of June 2022.
“The figures are interesting in the light of recent incidents during Ram Navami processions at Shibpur in Howrah and Rishra in Hooghly district. A large number of communal flare-ups go unreported in media,” rued the RTI activist.
“Certain RTI replies I received provided month-wise break-ups and the highest number of communal cases were observed between the months of March and May and October to November,” Mr. Goswami further pointed out.
According to the activist, there was no information from several police districts including Murshidabad and Birbhum while Malda Police gave “contradictory replies”.
“While the RTI queries revealed a number of incidents of communal violence, it was surprising that the National Crime Record Bureau [NCRB] report for the year 2021 had reference to only one such incident in the entire State. This is a classic example of data suppression and manipulation by the State,” Mr. Goswami added.
Political observer Biswanath Chakraborty said that the high incidence of communal violence is a reflection of “competitive communal politics” of the Trinamool Congress and the BJP. “After the Trinamool tried its brand of ‘appeasement’ with honorarium to minority communities, the BJP and its allies have found the soil of West Bengal fertile for Hindutva politics. We have seen riots at Asansol, Basirhat, Dhulagarh, Malda and now regular communal flare-ups on Ram Navami,” Prof. Chakraborty, who teaches Political Science at Rabindra Bharati University, said.
