Beaten Up, Humiliated For Being Muslim And Not Knowing The Name Of PM

A migrant labourer traveling in Howrah-Malda Fast Passenger train on May 14 was roughed-up by a group of men when he failed to answer their questions on the Indian national anthem and the prime minister. Jamal Momin was also forced to say Bharat Mata ki Jai and Vande Mataram. He said he was thrashed and abused in spite of him telling the four persons that he was uneducated hence he didn’t know the answers.

A video of the incident went viral on the social media, where four people who had briefly boarded the same train sat beside Momim and asked him randomly, “what is the national song of India?”, Momim couldn’t answer this and he was slapped on his face for that. Then they asked him, ‘who is the Prime Minister of this country’ to which he erroneously said, “Mamata Banerjee”. When they asked him ‘who is the Chief Minister of West Bengal’, he failed to answer that too.

He told TOI that they asked him if he offered namaz and when he said yes, they berated him and beat him some more saying “Shame on you. You offer namaz every day at a mosque but you don’t know the national anthem,” TOI reported Momim saying. Before they deboarded the train at Bandel station they forced him to say Bharat Mata Ki Jai and Vande Mataram.

Momim told TOI, “I was not feeling well that day. So, I sat beside the window. But they forced me to leave that seat. I accepted it. The four youths then threw a volley of questions at me. I could answer some, but most I didn’t know. They began to abuse me, my family and my religion. No one in the compartment objected to the abuse.”

When Momim was asked to recite Jana-Gana-Mana he was able to. But he couldn’t sing ‘Vande Mataram’ because of which he was again thrashed some more. He told TOI, “They roughed me up several times. I was reduced to tears. This went on till they got down at Bandel.”

He said he lived in fear in Bengal for the next five days and did not even tell his wife about this.

The disturbing video is here:

https://twitter.com/IronyOfIndia_/status/1000107034270838784

The migrant labourer from Kaliachak is now in Gujarat. A local NGO – Bangla Sankriti Mancha – took Momim’s wife Julekha to the police station to lodge an FIR on Friday against the accused, based on videos taken by co-passengers, Kaliachak Police Station Inspector-in-Charge Suman Chatterjee said. An investigation is underway, he said.

“We have accepted the complaint though the incident happened on a train and it comes under the jurisdiction of GRP. We have registered a case. The youths will be identified and booked. No one has the right to insult and assault a person for his religion,” said Malda superintendent of police Arnab Ghosh, TOI reported.