Kaliaganj incidents: Mrityunjay’s family says he was killed by Bengal police
The Bengal government and police have remained tight-lipped over the alleged killing of Mrityunjay Barman in a remote village near Kaliagunj in the wee hours of Thursday
Sixty-five-year-old Srikrishna Barman, the father of 33-year-old Mrityunjay, who was allegedly killed in police firing in the wee hours of Thursday at Chand Gaon, a remote village near Kaliagunj in West Bengal’s Uttar Dinajpur district, recounted the incident with tears in his eyes. Still in a state of shock, he called it a murder by the police and said he had initially thought that it was a raid by Border Security Force (BSF) personnel, who had come looking for smugglers in the village. The international Indo-Bangla border is just 300 metre from his house and such raids by the BSF are common.
“That night I heard some people shouting. I tried to get out of the house, but my family members stopped me. After some time, I heard two gunfire sounds. I was told Mrityunjay had been shot by the police. My health did not permit me to reach out to my son who was lying in a pool of blood just 30 feet away. I cried the whole night, and, in the morning, I was told my son had died,” said Barman, who is suffering from kidney ailments.
The state government and police have remained tight-lipped over the alleged killing of Mrityunjay. Top police officers, including the inspector general of police (IGP) north Bengal, Ajoy Kumar, and superintendent of police (SP) of Raiganj police district, Sana Akhtar, did not respond to multiple phone calls and text messages for a comment.
Several incidents of violence have been reported in the district after the death of a 17-year-old girl last week at Kaliagunj, 35 km from Mrityunjay’s house. She was found dead in a pond a day after she went missing on the evening of April 20. She was allegedly raped and murdered.
While the police had claimed that the girl died because of poisoning and there were no injury marks on her body which could have suggested a sexual assault, the family has rubbished the autopsy report claiming that police was politically motivated. To add salt to the injury, a purported video showing four policemen dragging the victim’s body on the road, went viral the next day. The four assistant sub-inspectors of police were suspended after it triggered a an outcry and a political row.
The alleged rape and murder and the viral video triggered protests which turned violent leading to clashes between the locals and the police for two consecutive days. With tension brewing in the village, fresh violence erupted on Tuesday when a mob attacked police personnel and set a barrack inside the Kalianganj police station on fire. At least 17 policemen were injured including two who were critically injured.
“There were three barricades before they could reach the police station. But within a few minutes they broke all three and attacked us. We took shelter in an adjacent house, but they chased us, barged into the house by breaking the door and started beating us. We were dragged out and the thrashing continued for some more time,” said a civic volunteer who was injured.
Police said on Wednesday that they arrested 32 people and raids were going on to arrest more people.
“The police came searching for me even though I am in no way involved in the violence. There is a wedding in the house, and we were all busy. As the cops were taking away my septuagenarian father and son-in-law, the women in the family protested. When my cousin Mrityunjay questioned them, he was shot dead,” said Bishnu Barman, a local BJP panchayat samiti member.
“Trigger happy ‘Mamata’ police raided the house of a BJP panchayat samiti member Bishnu Barman at 2:30 am..but did not find him. They brutally shot dead a Rajbangshi young man named Mrityunjay Barman; 33 years old,” leader of opposition Suvendu Adhikari had tweeted.
On Friday the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called a 12-hour bandh in the eight districts of north Bengal. The bandh evoked mixed response. While in some districts like Darjeeling it didn’t have any effect, in areas such as Uttar Dinajpur the streets wore a deserted look.
Barman said his son Mrityunjay had come home to attend his cousin’s wedding two days before with his wife Gauri Barman and their five-year-old son Dibyendu from Siliguri, where he worked as a supervisor in a construction company.
Mrityunjay was the main breadwinner of the family meeting the expenses of his father’s medical expenses. Recently he purchased a motorcycle for his brother.
“I can’t forget the barbaric face of the police as they just fled from the village after shooting my husband. The policemen even did not take Mrityunjay to the hospital,” said Gauri as she cried inconsolably.
Since then, police haven’t returned to the village even to retrieve the bullet, a vital piece of evidence in the murder case, that is still lying on the spot where Mrityunjay was shot dead, the family said.
At the deceased girl’s village, her father, who works as a mason in Nepal had returned home after his daughter’s death. However, he was not home when we arrived. Locals said that his wife has gone to Kolkata. She has already demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe.
“Police shouldn’t have had carried the victim’s body like that. It was a mistake. But what could they have possibly done? Stones were being pelted at them while they were recovering the body. Even police were injured. But we still suspended four police personnel. We would review that later,” chief minister Mamata Banerjee told media persons.
With the crucial panchayat elections likely to be held in the next few months, the two deaths have come as a major embarrassment for the ruling Trinamool Congress. Both the teenage girl and Mrityunjay were from the Ranbanshi community.
The BJP’s success in 2019 was credited largely to its ability to reach out to upper caste Hindus, tribal people and Hindu Dalit or Namasudra voters. Of the registered SC communities, the Rajbanshis of north Bengal and Namasudras of south Bengal comprise the highest numbers. These are the two segments the BJP targeted.
While the BJP alleged that the Mamata Banerjee-led party and government have insulted the adivasis and Rajbanshis, the chief minister has said that her government would stand by the teenage girl’s family.
Sandhya Barman, the aunt of the deceased girl, said: “Rajbanshi people cremate their dead. But we have buried the body near our home in case it needs to be exhumed. We are confident that the CBI would be ordered to probe into the case. We don’t have any faith in local police who are working as TMC cadres.”