A 27-year-old Muslim student of Aliah University was assaulted on a Sealdah-bound train in West Bengal by a group of 10–12 Hindutva men.
The attackers allegedly beat him, pulled his beard, and threatened to throw him off the train, accusing him of being a “Bangladeshi,” The Observer Post reported.
Rezaul Islam Mondal, a final-year M.Tech student and a resident of Hooghly district’s Meshera village, was returning from the Bishwa Ijtema religious gathering in Bangladesh along with four friends when the incident took place on a train from Gede station to Sealdah.
According to Rezaul, the issue began when a passenger asked him to remove his trolley bag from the luggage rack. Though he obeyed without protest, a group of men attempted to force him out of his seat. They shouted communal slurs, calling him a “Bangladeshi” when he resisted.
For nearly an hour, about a dozen people attacked him, despite him stating that he is an Indian citizen.
Rezaul was repeatedly punched and kicked, his skullcap was forcibly removed, his hair and beard were pulled, and he was subjected to verbal abuse. Some attackers even urged others to throw him off the moving train.
When his friend, Sajid Mirza, attempted to record the assault, he was met with threats of being thrown off the train.
“They accused us of being uneducated militants destroying the country,” Sajid told the news website.
After receiving treatment, Rezaul filed a complaint at Haripal police station, where officials allegedly refused to register it.
He later approached the Sealdah Government Railway Police (GRP) on February 5, where his complaint was registered.
A case has been filed under sections 115(2), 299, 351(2), and 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and railway police have launched an investigation.
“This is not an isolated case. Such acts are happening in states governed by RSS-backed politics,” CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya wrote on social media. “Over the past decade, West Bengal has been influenced by RSS ideology, fueling religious divisions. A strong secular movement is needed to break this cycle.”
“This incident is no exception. We have learned about such incidents in this state through the media. These incidents are also spreading on social media platforms. But the government of this state has no sense,” ISF MLA Nawsad Siddique wrote on Facebook.
“What is the crime of Rezaul Islam? That he has a beard and a cap on his head—is that his crime? Is that why he must be physically assaulted with terrorist-like attacks? Why must he be abused? Even the soil of Bengal is not spared from the hatred that the Hindutvaist BJP government is cultivating across the country. The Trinamool Congress government of this state is also complicit in this matter. While using Muslims as a ‘captive vote bank,’ this group is pushing their Hindutvaists into extreme communal attacks. A section of the mainstream media continues to fuel this spread of hate. That is why people like Rezaul Islam are being harassed—on trains and buses, on roads and in grocery stores—and are constantly assaulted. Even the railway authorities cannot remain inactive when such incidents happen inside trains. The railway police must act urgently and arrest the criminals. Negligence cannot be tolerated. People need to be aware in order to end this suffocating situation. We must continue this political awareness work,” he added.
