OPINDIA, Online, 27.7.2021 Page No. 0, Size:(0)cms X (0)cms.

‘We want Hindu girls, they said. The police are with them’: Victim who was gang-raped by TMC goons in front of her father narrates her story to OpIndia https://www.opindia.com/2021/07/bengal-post-poll-violence-tmc-goons-gangrape-hindu- women-murder-arson-nhrc-mamata-banerjee-victims-bjp/ On the 2nd of May, even as results were trickling in, it became rather evident by late afternoon that was coming back to power with a thumping majority. By early evening, a reign of terror was unleashed on those who had either worked for BJP during the state elections or, had voted for the party.

As TMC criminals gheraoed the BJP headquarters in Hastings, started lynching workers like Avijit Sarkar, started stone pelting and burning offices down to ashes, in a remote village in Burdwan, Ritu (name changed) and her father desperately searched for the money they had at hand and started collecting it on a table. They had heard the sounds from others in their village, the news had travelled fast – TMC goons were unleashing hell. Both her father and Ritu had worked for BJP in the run-up to elections and they knew the goons would come knocking on their door sooner or later, given what they were doing in the rest of the village.

Several houses in their locality were being brutally attacked by those who purportedly worked for TMC. In this particular village, it was a gang of Muslim men burning down houses, harassing Hindus and attacking the men who worked for BJP in the run-up to elections. News of some women being gang-raped by TMC men had also spread like wildfire. Talking to OpIndia, Ritu says that while the village burnt and women got gang- raped, there was no police in sight. She says that the police, in fact, refused to answer the phone when calls for help were being made.

At about 6-7 PM on 2nd May, just as they were collecting money and getting ready to leave and it was lightly raining outside, TMC men came knocking. Ritu says that several TMC goons, both Hindus and Muslims, came knocking at the door. About 12 goons, she said, were standing outside the house at the periphery guarding and some goons, 8 or 9 of them, led by one Mamun Sheikh, came inside her house.

The moment they came inside the house, they asked Ritu’s father where she was. “Teri beti kaha hai”, Ritu says they said. At that time, the TMC goons and Ritu’s father started getting into a scuffle. They were pushing her father around and constantly asked “where is your daughter?”. The father kept pushing them away and saying that his daughter was not at home. Ritu, at this time, was hiding in the kitchen.

While her father tried desperately to ward the goons off, they caught a glimpse of Ritu, hiding, trying to save herself. Her father told the goons to leave his daughter alone and do whatever they want with him instead. This, while some of the goons had already OPINDIA, Online, 27.7.2021 Page No. 0, Size:(0)cms X (0)cms.

dragged her out and were holding her, refusing to let her go. As her father begged, the goons said, “No. We want only Hindu girls, and we want your daughter”.

“They took out their gun and started beating papa mercilessly”, Ritu told OpIndia. “I tried to save papa but I could not do it. They kept beating him. They were holding me and like dogs trying to harass me. Can you understand what was happening? I could not understand if I should save myself or papa.. should I manage how they were beating me up or save papa”, she added.

The goons who were in the house suddenly hit Ritu’s father on his head and made him sit in one corner, with a gun pushed to the temple of his head. “Even when they made him sit in the corner after hitting him on his head, they did not just leave him alone. They kept kicking and beating him”, Ritu says.

The main culprit, Mamun Sheikh and his accomplices dragged Ritu in front of his father, tore her clothes and p