A police vehicle at a village in Chopra in Uttar Dinajpur where a women was publicaly beaten at a kangaroo courtby a local Trinamool Congress leader. File photo
| Photo Credit: DEBASISH BHADURI
Following kangaroo court and mob violence allegations at Chopra and Fulbari, two more incidents of mob violence arising out of kangaroo courts have come to the fore in West Bengal’s Malda and South 24 Parganas districts.
Trinamool Congress worker from the Sonarpur area of South 24 Parganas, Jamaluddin Sardar, has been accused by locals of tying women down with metal chains around their ankles and brutally assaulting them in kangaroo courts over family disputes. The news came to the fore after a complaint was lodged at the local police station by a woman on July 12, who alleged that she was chained and tortured by Mr. Sardar in a kangaroo court at his house on July 9.
Also read: Chopra flogging: Victims and survivors, silenced
Another local woman accused Mr. Sardar of hanging her husband upside down from the ceiling of his house with metal chains and brutally assaulting him through the night, while many others also levelled allegations of forced land grab.
Videos of Mr. Sardar’s palatial house, replete with multiple CCTV cameras, an annexe building and a swimming pool, have also stirred controversy.
Bharatiya Janata Party leaders including MLA Agnimitra Paul visited the spot and took stock of the accusations being levelled by locals against the Trinamool worker.
“The complainant and her son visited my house to resolve a family dispute,” Mr. Sardar told a local television channel, denying all allegations. “These are all false allegations. How can I torture them if they themselves came to my house?” He added that the metal chains in his house are used for herding cattle.
According to police sources, Mr. Sardar is absconding and two people have been detained in connection to the case.
Sonarpur Dakshin MLA Arundhuti Maitra has denied any connection between the accused and the Trinamool Congress, and said he will be dealt with as per law.
Meanwhile, videos of mob violence in a kangaroo court have surfaced from Malda’s Kaliachak area. Around 19 people have been named in the FIR, of which many have been arrested by the police.
The victims, a married couple, have alleged that they were brutally beaten up by locals on July 12 in a kangaroo court that was set up to discuss their marriage. Reportedly, both the wife and husband had divorced their former spouses and married each other nearly a year ago.
“The people brutally beat me and my husband up last Friday over our marriage. They also cut off our hair, and paraded us in the village with a garland of shoes around our necks,” the wife told local mediapersons. Her husband added that his wife’s ex-husband and his relatives were part of the mob. “They dragged her by the hair to torture her in the open. I followed them and got beaten up as well,” he said on a local television channel.
The wife also accused the public of trapping her husband in a room and brutally beating him up on the night of July 12, adding that they were abandoned in the locked room with their injuries the whole night. They were rescued by the police on Saturday, July 13.
On Tuesday, West Bengal’s Director General of Police, Rajeev Kumar, said that those who take law and order into their own hands would be dealt with sternly.