The fifteen-year-long tyrannical reign of Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal was marred by violence, vandalism, and her deliberate silence. From post-poll violence, anti-CAA riots to the Muslim mob attacks during anti-Waqf Bill protests, the TMC government in West Bengal allowed, enabled, or downplayed anarchy as per convenience. Now, the new CM Suvendu Adhikari-led BJP government has ordered an investigation into the 2019 anti-CAA riots that caused extensive damage to Indian Railways in the state.
West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari has directed the West Bengal Police under DGP Siddh Nath Gupta to review and probe all complaints of arson, vandalism, and damage to public property, particularly railway assets, during the 2019 protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
A special police cell will be set up to investigate verified cases, and efforts will be made to recover costs estimated at around Rs 93 crore for railways from the rioters in Murshidabad, Howrah, and other areas. The action follows a meeting with Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.
West Bengal anti-CAA riots, and the TMC government’s tacit support
On 12th December 2019, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was passed to provide a fast-tracked path to Indian citizenship for persecuted religious minorities; Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Christians, and Parsis, from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, who entered India before 31st December 2014.
The Islamo-leftist cabal, however, was outraged over the CAA not including Muslims and dubbed the legislation discriminatory, defying common sense that Muslims cannot face persecution in Islamic countries for being Muslims, and the fact that the Indian constitutional mandate for equal rights applies to Indian citizens, not foreign nationals in hostile nations. Rumours were floated that the CAA was linked to a proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), and that Indian Muslims would be stripped of their citizenship. In no time, anti-CAA protests erupted nationwide. CM Mamata herself had perpetrated those claims on a number of occasions.
The politics, propaganda, and protests escalated into violence in several states, including West Bengal.
In West Bengal, then Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself led several protest rallies and declared that the CAA would be implemented only over her dead body. “If they want to implement CAA, they will have to do it over my dead body,” Banerjee said on 16th December 2019.
The state’s chief minister, leading anti-CAA protests, emboldened Islamists already itching to wreak havoc. On 14th December 2019, violence erupted in the Muslim-majority Murshidabad district.
Muslim mobs set fire to five empty trains at Lalgola and Krishnapur railway stations. In Suti, railway tracks were damaged. The rioters also targeted Beldanga station. The rioters vandalised more than five railway stations and set fire to a toll plaza in Murshidabad district alone.
The rioting Jihadis had gone on a rampage in West Bengal’s Howrah district as well. They resorted to extreme violence by blocking tracks at the Uluberia railway station. The Muslim mobs had vandalised the complex and some trains by resorting to stone pelting, injuring a driver, officials said. The violence affected train services in the Sealdah division of the Eastern Railways. The Muslim mob also attacked the Sujnipara railway station under the Malda division of Eastern Railways.
The Anti-CAA Muslim mobs also attacked the ticket counter at Sankrail railway station in Howrah district and set fire to the station. The rioting mob also targeted the Nimtita station, damaged railway property and pelted stones.
Anti-CAB protesters set the ticket counter at Sankrail railway station on fire in Howrah district pic.twitter.com/5fSws6mYRz
— Indrajit Kundu | ইন্দ্রজিৎ (@iindrojit) December 14, 2019
Trains were stopped by burning tyres on the railway tracks, and they pelted stones. The police vehicle that reached the spot was also set on fire. As a precautionary measure, many trains were cancelled. Internet services were also shut down in 6 districts.
Between 12th and 16th December 2019, violent ‘protests’ occurred in Murshidabad, Birbhum, and spread across North 24 Parganas.
Rail services between Nungi and Akra stations in the South 24 Parganas district were severely affected as protesters blocked the tracks. Akra station was vandalised and set on fire. In addition to violence and arson, the rioting mob also looted the money kept at the ticket counter.
Back then, OpIndia had reported on the horrific experience of a local Bengali, Sankhadeep Shome, during the jihadi riots in West Bengal. In a Facebook post, Shome narrated that he was on board the UP Howrah-Chennai Central Coromandel Express, which rolled into Uluberia station on the Howrah-Kharagpur section at around 3:20 pm on Friday.
He stated that a large crowd of around 500-700 miscreants emerged from the “Jummah Namaz” at a mosque adjoining the station, who blocked the entire railway line at a level crossing outside the station.
Trains were being vandalised, railway stations ransacked, while CM Mamata Banerjee was busy playing politics, and downplaying Jihadi violence
While Bengal was burning, CM Mamata Banerjee was discovering ways to add fuel to the fire and burnish her own image of a self-declared defender of ‘secularism’.
It must be recalled that amid protests in West Bengal, then Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar had called Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s advertisement, in which she stated that the NRC and Citizenship Amendment Act would not be implemented, unconstitutional. The governor stated that as head of government, Mamata Banerjee cannot use government funds for such advertisements.
Meanwhile, the BJP had alleged that Muslim mobs were attacking Hindu houses in border districts.
बंगाल में बांग्लादेश से लगे सभी जिलों में घुसपैठियों द्वारा हिन्दुओं के घरों में लूटपाट और आगजनी की जा रहा है। pic.twitter.com/3lyShh8s8F
— Kailash Vijayvargiya (@KailashOnline) December 15, 2019
From 13th to 17th December 2019, more than 19 railway stations and 20 trains were vandalised or set ablaze by Muslim rioters joined by TMC workers in many places. The rioters also pelted stones at passing trains, vandalised ticket booking counters, stole money, and laid siege to tracks.
Railways suffered extensive damage, properties worth crores were destroyed, hundreds of trains had to be cancelled
Consequently, the Railway Ministry was forced to cancel around 655 trains in West Bengal. Around 17 FIRs were registered in multiple cases of rioting and arson on railway premises. Eastern Railways (ER) was reported to have cancelled 127 mail/express trains, 190 passenger trains and 290 suburban trains. South-Eastern Railways’ Kharagpur division alone suffered losses of around Rs 16 crore due to Jihadi mob violence, as 48 trains were cancelled, six stations were ransacked, and five trains were set ablaze, and RPF teams were attacked by rioters, between 13th and 17th December 2019.
However, then Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, who on many occasions boasted how she is not a Kafir and she fights Kafirs, dismissed the incidents of Muslim mob violence as ‘small incidents’.
Banerjee did not stop here; she went on to play the victim card and villainise the BJP-led Central government, accusing them of deliberately cancelling trains in West Bengal to “defame” the state and her government. This opprobrious and spiteful statement came after the Railways Ministry suspended services in riot-affected areas in West Bengal, citing safety risks from the prevailing tensions, blockades, attacks and the TMC regime’s failure to act against rioters.
Not only this, while railway officials had to run and hide to save themselves from Muslim mobs, Mamata Banerjee shrugged off accountability by saying that protecting railway officials and infrastructure was not the state government’s job. Banerjee said this even as law and order come under the state government, and she was directly responsible for ensuring peace and order in the state she rules.
“There were some small incidents at some places. But they (the central government) almost shut down railway services. People are facing serious problems due to the random cancellation of trains. It is not our responsibility to protect the railways, but we tried to help them as much as possible. They have their force, RPF, to protect trains and stations,” Banerjee said at a rally in Jadavpur, south Kolkata, on 17th December 2019.
The TMC supremo’s casual defence that protecting railway assets and officials was not her government’s job was no less than a boastful admission that she allowed Jihadis to run riots and specifically target Central government assets to build pressure, all this over a law that had nothing remotely to do with any Indian citizen.
Banerjee’s shamelessness in letting Islamists run riots, disrupt law and order, put the lives of numerous people in jeopardy just because she got to benefit politically from a non-issue, was appalling.
The then West Bengal Chief Minister distanced herself from the constitutional duty of protecting peace and public property, by claiming that protecting railway infrastructure is the Centre’s, specifically the RPF’s job. However, it was Banerjee herself who refused to accept the offer by the Central government to deploy central paramilitary forces for assistance.
This indicated that Banerjee deliberately created circumstances conducive for Jihadis to run riots with impunity, while the TMC government would politically attack the Centre, and deflect attention from violence her regime enabled.
TMC government did not cooperate with Centre to recover costs from vandals for damages to railway property during the 2019 anti-CAA riotsin West Bengal
In addition to extending tacit support to rioters and dodging accountability, the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government also effectively prevented the recovery of costs for damages caused to railway property during 2019 anti-CAA protests and violence.
Days after the anti-CAA riots, Railway Board Chairman V.K. Yadav had publicly stated that the Indian Railways suffered losses of over Rs 80-93 crore in West Bengal due to destruction of trains, stations, tracks and other assets.
The Ministry announced explicitly that they would coordinate with state authorities to recover the costs from the identified rioters involved in destroying railway property.
Despite law and order being a state subject, the TMC government did not actively pursue identification and arrests of rioters or facilitate compensation proceedings against the perpetrators.
The Ministry of Railways had cited the West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order (Amendment) Act, 2017 (allowing collective compensation) and the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984 (mandatory penalties and recovery), to seek cooperation of the TMC government. However, no meaningful recovery action could be taken due to Mamata Banerjee’s non-cooperation.
The necessity for a new government in 2026 to order a fresh, time-bound probe into the 2019 anti-CAA violence, six years later, speaks volumes of Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government’s deliberate inaction, systematic downplaying of documented arson and violence, and non-cooperation with Central government.
