A mob allegedly attacked and assaulted three Christian families in West Bengal, threatening them with rape and death, and forced them to take part in Hindu rituals over three days this month. Police have registered a case against 13 people, but no arrests have been made till now. The accused have not been heard from.
Lakshmi Mondal, 40, was doing household chores at about 3.30 pm on October 18 when a mob of more than ten people, at least three of them women, entered her home in Patlapur, a village of roughly 150 families in Paschim (West) Medinipur district. She identified them as members of the Bajrang Dal, a Hindu nationalist organisation, and said some came from neighbouring villages.
Lakshmi told media that she was dragged outside, slapped and struck on her head and below her ears, due to which she lost consciousness. The attackers also tried to strip her and tore her blouse and removed her saree. Speaking to The Wire she said that the group then drenched her with water in front of onlookers, chanted “Jai Shri Ram” (Hail Lord Ram) and declared her purified. They also took her Bible, she said.
The mob also threatened to abduct and rape her 16-year-old daughter, a Class 10 student, and to burn the family alive unless they gave up Christianity and returned to Hinduism. “They said I can’t have faith in Christianity and no Christian can stay in this Hindu locality,” Mondal said. The police complaint records a rape threat against the girl.
Soon the group reached the nearby homes of Banashree and Saraswati Mondal, and the mob proceeded to beat up both women on their backs, reportedly using bamboo sticks and an iron rod. Banashree’s 15-year-old daughter was allegedly strangled by the attackers with intent to kill and threatened with abduction and rape.
The attackers reportedly also broke the lock on Saraswati’s door and took about Rs 20,000 in cash. Before leaving, the mob repeated its threat to burn the families alive if they reported these things to the police.
But Lakshmi had already phoned the police and officers arrived at about 6.30 pm. She alleged that they offered no protection and left soon after. The mob then surrounded the houses, threatened the families and told them that the police would not save them. That night Lakshmi Mondal’s family moved their daughter to another place for her protection.
The next morning, October 19, two of the accused, Madan Manna and Bappaditya Chatterjee, took members of the families to a Durga Puja pandal in nearby Dingal village. Mondal, Banashree and their husbands were among them. A pandal is a temporary shrine built for the festival. The families said they had to offer Pushpanjali, a floral offering to the Hindu deity. Reportedly they were also forced to eat prasad, the food offered to the Hindu gods, which is shared among believers after worship.
On October 20, at about 7.30 am, Manna and others entered Lakshmi Mondal’s house and took away her husband, Tapan, along with Saraswati’s husband, Ashok. They led the two men to an isolated spot and threatened to kill them unless they renounced their faith in Jesus Christ. Tapan returned after some hours. Later in the day the mob came back, abused Lakshmi and confined her to a room.
That day Lakshmi went to Chandrakona police station and lodged a First Information Report (FIR), the document that sets a criminal case in motion in India. It named 13 people, among them Dilip Mishra, Ranjit Dolui, Pocha Patra, Bapi Mondal and Purnima Das. Police have booked them under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, India’s criminal code, for offences including house trespass, attempt to murder, assault with intent to disrobe a woman, theft, aggravated criminal intimidation and insulting a woman’s modesty. Lakshmi told media that police posted a guard outside the homes only after the complaint.
Papiya Sultana, the district’s Superintendent of Police, confirmed the case on October 21. “The FIR has been registered. The police will provide security to the families, and the incident will be investigated. Appropriate action will be taken,” she told The Wire. She told Alt News on October 23 that Lakshmi’s statement would be recorded before a magistrate, a step that gives a victim’s account formal legal weight. The families have now been given police protection, but investigating officers said no arrests had been made. Asked whether the Bajrang Dal was involved, a senior officer replied: “We are looking into it.”
The families claim that they adopted Christianity years ago. Their conversion was not frowned upon and was accepted as their personal choice. However, trouble began during last year’s Durga Puja, when Lakshmi Mondal’s cousins-in-law harassed them and demanded to know why the family had converted.
The Mondals had filed a complaint at the Chandrakona police station but no action was taken against their cousins. Harassment intensified further after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the state government in May this year. The village has no church, so the families pray at home. “We pray to Jesus in our own homes. We do so peacefully. Why should anyone have a problem with that?” the families told AltNews.
Herod Mullick, founder of the Christian body Bangiya Christiya Pariseba, told the media that the families have not been formally baptised but believe in Jesus Christ. His organisation plans to send a fact-finding team to the village and seek a meeting with the district magistrate.
Christian groups see Patlapur as one episode in a wider pattern. Alt News documented 35 incidents against Christians in Bengal between July 1 and September 20. A Kolkata-based Christian leader counted at least 13 FIRs and more than 60 attacks, most without action against the perpetrators. Christians make up about 0.72 per cent of the state’s population, or 6.5 lakh people, according to the 2011 census. A lakh is 100,000.
Another Christian leader in West Bengal, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, described a community on edge. “We live in fear,” he said. “The BJP has unleashed a wave of terror and anti-social elements have been given a free hand to attack Christians. We used to read about incidents like these in Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh, but never thought West Bengal would be like this.” He said the police had changed sharply. “What is surprising is the almost complete turnaround of the law and order machinery. The police seem to serve their political masters rather than the citizens.”
The case has reached national politics. In a letter written on Saturday, October 24, K C Venugopal, general secretary of the Congress party and chairman of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, urged Union Home Minister Amit Shah and West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari to arrest all the accused. In a post on X, he called the victims’ treatment “heart-wrenching” and said forcing anyone to perform another faith’s rituals under threat of violence was “an assault not only on the victims but on the Constitution itself.” He cited Article 25, which guarantees freedom of religion. The letter says that, according to the victims, the first-day complaint produced no effective police action, and that the FIR followed only after a lawyer intervened on their behalf.
With a police guard at her door, Lakshmi Mondal remains afraid. “We are still terrified,” she told Scroll. “No one has been arrested yet. What if the police are removed?”
