On Sunday, October 9, the Hindus residing in the Mominpore locality of Kolkata, West Bengal, witnessed a replay of the 1946 Noakhali riots. They were attacked by Islamists surrounding them for not stopping the Durga Puja and other subsequent religious celebrations. It was the occasion of Kojagari Lokkhi Puja, a version of Lakshmi Puja celebrated by Hindus in Bengal and some other parts on the day of Sharad Poornima. The Hindu festival coincided with the Eid-Milad-Un-Nabi observed by Muslims.

Mominpore, as the name suggests, is a Muslim majority area, and there are small pockets of Bengali Hindus residing surrounded by Muslims. The Hindus, mostly belonging to the SC (‘Dalit’) community, had set up a Puja pandal and held their Durga puja near Jnan Chandra Ghosh Polytechnic College. The puja, organized by the Harijan Durgosave Committee, had been targeted by the Islamists since the beginning. 

“Muslims in the area have been pressuring them to remove the pandal and stop the conduct of Lakshmi Puja,” informed a Kolkata-based journalist who chose to stay anonymous due to possible targeting by the Mamata Banerjee government. “In West Bengal, wherever Durga Puja is celebrated, it is mandatory to worship Goddess Lakshmi at the same site,” he added. Hence, the organizers didn’t take down the pandal.

While the Hindus were being forced to discontinue the Durga Puja, they held their ground. The Harijan Durgosave Committee had stated that the Durga pandal could only be dismantled after the holding of Lakshmi Puja on Sunday. This refusal to be cowed down infuriated the local Islamists, who came in droves and vandalized the Durga pandal on the Kojahari Lokkhi Puja evening. On the day, they marked the Eid-Milad-Un-Nabi by pelting stones at Hindu homes and shops and damaging vehicles belonging to the Hindus.

“They coerced the Ekbalpur police station to register a case against Hindus associated with the Puja committee. They also carried out targeted attacks on Hindu homes and looted shops belonging to the Hindu community,” informed the Kolkata-based journalist. He further exposed the broken law and order situation in the state by revealing that the Islamists who had attacked the Hindus were still on the loose. 

An activist of a Hindu rights organization asserted, “Their target was to force a demography change and remove Hindus from these pockets.” 

When asked if the Ekbalpur police station acted against the Islamists during the violence, the activist said, “The police seemed completely helpless. Such an attack is not possible without some degree of political backing.” He added that the imposition of Section 144 has put the situation in Mominpore to some extent. 

Reportedly, the attack was not limited to the pandal. Islamists have vandalized vehicles and shops belonging to Hindus at the Maila Depot area in Mominpore. Hindu houses were ransacked in Mayurbhanj, the Kolkata port area. West Bengal BJP Chief Sukanta Majumdar shares that the Hindu community is being forced to flee. He also indicated that there is a desperate attempt to turn West Bengal into Bangladesh.  

BJP leader Pritam Sur also shared gory visuals showing Islamist miscreants unleashing mayhem on the streets of Bengal’s capital. “Bombs and bricks are being hurled at us. Even the police are forced to flee. The situation is so grim that the face of democracy is blackened on the occasion of Lakshmi Puja,” he tweeted.

After ransacking Hindu homes and businesses, an Islamist mob ambushed the Ekbalpur police station claiming that an Islamic flag had been desecrated, and made the police officers flee. The crowd was also seen waving their Islamic flags during the attack. It was ironic to see that the police force that had assaulted BJP karyakartas for holding a peaceful rally in a city a few weeks ago, running for their life and hiding haplessly in the face of a violent Islamist crowd. 

As per twitter user Syed Ishtiyaque Alam, the Mominpore anti-Hindu pogrom was the handiwork of Ghulam Asraf (Phoenix group owner), Rehan Khan (son-in-law of a TMC councillor), and Shahbaz Alam (a close aide of TMC leader Firhad Hakim).

TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee, who had infamously proclaimed that he would shoot the peaceful protestors of the ‘Nabanna Abhijan’ BJP rally in their head, has not made any statements about the Islamist crowd vandalizing a police station.  

Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari reached out to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs seeking urgent deployment of central forces in the region to protect the Hindu community from state-sponsored Islamist rioters. Kolkata is home to many self-proclaimed intellectuals; all of them have maintained a safe silence so far.