Kolkata: Bengal Police have filed a first information report against Communist Party of India (Marxist) state secretary Mohammed Salim, along with Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Malviya, over videos they shared on social media, which purported to show a Trinamool Congress leader in Chopra of North Dinajpur district beating up a woman in a kangaroo court
Curiously, the complainant in the case is the woman who was being beaten up.
As The Wire has reported, a man identified as Chopra TMC leader Tajimul Haque was seen brutally beating a woman over adultery claims in a video shot on June 28, that led to nationwide outrage. Haque was arrested after police filed a suo motu case, but got bail soon afterwards.
The Wire has also reported how Haque maintains a firm grip on the area and that one week before the aforementioned video, a man and a woman were similarly beaten up over ‘adultery’ allegations by the same leader.
Haque’s strongarm tactics have earned him the nickname ‘JCB’, after a bulldozer brand. Although his kangaroo court sessions and punishments happen in public view, locals who spoke to The Wire had repeated that they live in mortal fear of retribution if they raise their voices.
Speaking to The Wire, Salim said that the woman was being pressured by the police to file an FIR against him “for raising the issue of political hooliganism in the state.”
“It’s clear that the police are acting on the orders of state home minister Mamata Banerjee. However, she won’t succeed in using fear tactics to silence us. The truth cannot be suppressed by intimidation and threat,” he said.
Salim had been one among many to post the video. On June 30, along with the video, he had written on X, “Not even kangaroo court! Summary trial and punishment handed out by the TMC goon nicknamed JCB. Literally bulldozer justice at Chopra under Mamata Banerjee’s rule.”
Salim added that this is a chapter from the “RSS playbook”. “Mamata Banerjee is employing the same modus operandi used by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in the Gujarat riot case. In the Best Bakery case, victims Yasmeen Bano Sheikh and Zaheera Sheikh were coerced by the police to file an FIR against Teesta Setalvad,” he said.
The complaint by the woman that led to the FIR purportedly came on July 1. On the same night Islampur police filed a case against the FIR number 446/24. Police have invoked sections 79, 294 and 356 (2) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita and sections 66A, 66B and 67A of the Information Technology Act.
In the complaint the woman has written in Bengali that she has been defamed by the fact that without her knowledge her video has been circulated on social media. “The video was made viral by Mohammed Salim and Amit Malviya. Let action be taken against them,” she wrote.
There is no mention of the physical torture she underwent in the video.
