Bengal violence: Ignoring party’s underbelly could cost Mamata dear

The two back-to-back incidents that saw eight people being burnt alive and an influential panchayat leader bombed to death at Bogtui village in Birbhum district on Monday were the result of a deep-rooted malaise that has turned West Bengal into a tinderbox.

The law-and-order situation has come to such a pass that even nationwide uproar and shock over the twin incidents failed to make any impact on the ongoing trend of violence.

Within hours of the incidents, another panchayat-level leader of the ruling TMC, Sahadev Mandal, was shot at in Nadia district on Wednesday night. On the same night, a newly elected TMC councillor of Hooghly’s Tarakeswar, Roopa Sarkar, alleged that there was an attempt to kill her. She was returning home on a bike when a Maruti van rammed the two-wheeler from behind, critically injuring the councillor, as per the police complaint.

A day earlier, a TMC block president in Cooch Behar district, Sanjay Kumar Barman, was attacked when he was on his way to a local panchayat office. Barman sustained severe injuries.

Also read: Birbhum violence: Villagers recount horrors of fire, say there’s no security

All the above incidents are allegedly the fallout of feuds among TMC factions and are continuation of a series of violent political incidents the state has witnessed in the recent past, laying bare the complete policing paralysis in the state.

Complete policing paralysis

Two councillors — one belonging to the opposition Congress and another to the ruling TMC – and a young student leader and a vocal critic of the TMC government, Anish Khan, were among those who fell prey to this culture of violence within a span of about a month. A bomb was also allegedly hurled targeting the vehicle of BJP MP Jagannath Sarkar in Nadia district last week. He escaped unhurt.

There is one common strand in these incidents – the hegemony of TMC’s local satraps, who control everything from the economy to law and order in their respective pockets, almost running a parallel administration. The modus operandi is to first ensure that there is no sign of opposition in their area so that there is no check and balance over their influence.

Once the opposition-free zone is established and political domination is completed, obviously with the complicity of the ruling party leaders and police, they train their guns on competitors within the party to establish control over spoils of illegal activities – such as taking cut money from the beneficiaries of the government’s welfare schemes, stone and sand mining, coal and cattle smuggling. These activities are mostly run through syndicates.

For the uninitiated, a syndicate is an organised crime racket. Mostly unemployed youths are members of these syndicates, which thrive under the patronage of local leaders of the ruling party.

Genesis of syndicate raj

The genesis of the syndicate raj is traced to the Left Front rule in the early 2000s, coinciding with the real estate boom, particularly in areas in and around Kolkata. The members of these syndicates would control supply of building materials and would then divide the spoils among the members.

The syndicates started expanding in every sphere and district during the TMC regime as due to lack of industrialisation in the state jobs were hard to come by. They have gradually become an alternative economy, overnight spawning several rags-to-riches stories even in the hinterlands.

The three major characters in the Bogtui killings typify this trait.

The slain TMC panchayat deputy, Bhadu Sheikh, started his career as a driver. For a short stint he even drove police vehicles. Later, using his police connections, Bogtui locals said, Bhadu tried his hands in illegal sand and stone mining. It was then that he became close to Rampurhat block TMC leader Anarul Hossain. The association helped the meteoric rise in Bhadu’s political clout and wealth.

He became panchayat deputy winning rural body elections uncontested in 2018. The panchayat elections that year were marred by unprecedented violence across the state. In many rural areas, the opposition candidates could not even file nominations.

“Bhadu used to call me uncle. As a neighbour, I have seen him grow from a little boy to an influential leader. The victory in the panchayat was a turning point in his life. It led to a significant rise in his economic and social prominence. His entire extended family benefited from it,” said Saher Alam Sheikh, an elderly resident of Bogtui.

The extent of Bhadu’s wealth can be roughly gauged from his palatial three-storied building in Bogtui. He also owned another one-storey house in the same village.

Career of crime

A similar trajectory is seen in the rise of Anarul, Bhadu’s mentor. The undisputed strongman of Rampurhat was a mason before his foray into politics. He is the main suspect in the bloodbath that ensued in the aftermath of Bhadu’s murder.

The TMC Rampurhat block president was arrested by the police on Thursday, three days after the shocking incident. That too only after the Chief Minister, while visiting the village, publicly ordered his arrest.

A resident of Sandhipur in Hooghly district, Anarul started his political career with the Congress. After the TMC came to power in 2011, he shifted his political allegiance. In the TMC he soon became close to the party’s all-powerful Birbhum district president Anubrata Mandal, who is often accused of running his own fiefdom.

Mandal himself is being investigated in a CBI case pertaining to a multi-crore cattle-smuggling racket operating along the India-Bangladesh border.

Bhadu’s family named Sona Sheikh as one of the main accused in the murder of the TMC panchayat deputy chief. Sona used to do odd jobs, before he joined politics to turn his fortune. Seven charred bodies were recovered on Tuesday morning from Sona’s sprawling one-storey house. Sona is still absconding.

Political vs commercial violence

“Bengal has a long history of political violence. In the past violence was used to enforce a particular political ideology or policy of the ruling party. But now it has more to do with money and control over illegal activities,” said Kirity Roy, a prominent human rights activist and secretary of the rights body Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM).

The TMC government has so far tried to deny the existence of the ugly underbelly of the ruling party, allowing the debility to fester to the extent that it has now totally crippled the law-and-order machinery. If left unattended, the malady could completely spiral out of control, spelling doom for the TMC by eroding its support base.

Warring groups from minority community

What should be of more concern to the TMC is that in the Bogtui incidents, both the warring groups are from the minority community, which constitutes the core support base of the party. Already some signs of restlessness have been seen in the community over their support to the TMC after the death of Anish Khan, a popular minority youth leader.

Senior TMC leader and minister Firhad Hakim, the most prominent minority face of the party, was prevented from entering Khan’s village, Amta, by the villagers on Friday alleging government’s inaction in bringing to books those involved in the alleged murder.

Complete no confidence in the state’s law and order machinery was witnessed in Bogtui. Both the aggrieved sides expressed no confidence in the police, who failed to prevent the brutal murder of Bhadu and the subsequent reprisal on family members of the alleged mastermind of the killing.

“People will lose faith in the party if we fail to provide them security,” admitted a senior TMC leader in private. Incidentally, the CPI(M) has recently made Mohammed Selim its state unit chief, ostensibly eyeing on state’s 30 per cent minority votes.

Further, the recent spate of violence also sparked protests from many civil society organisations and intellectuals, refreshing the memory of protests launched against the erstwhile CPI(M)-led Left Front government by such groups in the post-Nandigram violence.

Last-ditch effort

Rattled by the course of events, Mamata rushed to the village to reach out to the victims on Thursday and ordered a cleansing operation, directing police to launch a special drive across the state to unearth all illegal arms and ammunition within 10 days.

Police chiefs in all the districts and commissionerates have also been asked to gather intelligence about inter-party and intra-party rivalries in their jurisdiction and initiate action wherever there is “possibility of violence”.

The police recovered catches of crude bombs and firearms from various parts of the state on Friday, a day after the chief minister’s directives. It is now to be seen whether Banerjee, who also holds the home portfolio, can really cleanse her party. The outcome will decide not only the future of her party, but also the state