Kolkata: One day after a Jadavpur University professor was roughed up by BJP activists when she was returning from an anti-CAA rally, well-known photographer and filmmaker Ronny Sen was attacked with a dagger for participating in protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Kolkata on Monday.
“Happened last night! I was attacked with a ‘Bhojali’ (dagger) last night in Calcutta (now Kolkata) for anti CAA/NRC/NPR protests,” said Sen whose debut feature film, Cat Sticks, premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in 2019.
Sen reportedly suffered a minor injury in the alteration and filed a police complaint, where he accused one Avijit Dasgupta of harassing him for his anti-CAA, NRC protests.
"He (attacker) repeatedly asked me to refrain from posting against the CAA and the NRC and (not to) participate in activities which he considers as anti-national. I am safe and unhurt. Immediately, I lodged a police complaint last night. It is such a revelation that attacking, killing, shooting, people in the name of nationalism is so normal in today’s India," a report in The Hindu quoted him as saying after the incident.
The incident took place a day after Doyeeta Majumder, assistant professor at the Jadavpur University’s English department, was manhandled by a group of BJP women supporters when she was on her way home from an anti-CAA rally.
Recounting the incident in a Facebook post, she said, “On my way back from an anti-CAA rally, I ran into a saffron outfit at 8-B area in Jadavpur, and got totally roughed up and hit by BJP 'bhodromohilas' (well behaved women). I am fine, no lasting harm done, only shuddering at the infinite horrors in store for us.”
Majumder said she was surrounded by a mob of women who hit her and pushed her down. “The saffron speaker was spewing naked hate speech against Muslims for a good few minutes, then turned and pointed at the campus and started saying 'this University (JU) is the root of all evil, they all chant Allahu Akbar every day'. I snorted out loud, and shouted 'mithye kotha' (lying), twice. That is all it took. In seconds, I was surrounded by a mob of mashima (aunt)-like women who started pushing me down and hitting me. A young man tried to protest, he was roughed up too.”
“Ultimately, I was dragged kicking and screaming (sic) by two (presumably BJP) men who kept saying 'Didi ar jhamela baraben na, chole jan, chole jan’ (didi, don’t create more fuss, leave this place).
Those women, who looked like people who would normally pester you to eat an extra piece of fish or mishit (sweet), were literally baying for my blood.”
“Once again, I am fine, no blood spilt, no bones broken, but that this could happen to me in Jadavpur, where I live and work, at the hands of middle-aged middle-class women, is a sign of the times we live in. If you think this will not happen to you, you are really, really deluded,” she said.
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