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Journalism of Courage
“Prem ki bhebe chinte kora jaye (can you plan and fall in love)?”
Days after a video came to light showing a Trinamool Congress functionary flogging a couple in public, the 38-year-old woman at the centre of the storm has told The Indian Express that she can put the ignominy of being beaten and humiliated in public behind her as long as she gets to “live life on her own terms.”
The woman spoke to The Indian Express from a home where she is sequestered in Uttar Dinajpur. Outside, several policemen stand guard. The woman, who is married and has two children, said that five years ago, she fell in love with another man.
At first, they would meet in secret, she said. When her husband eventually found out, he asked her to leave home, and on June 27, she said she moved in with the other man, who is 35 and also married.
To many in the village, she said, this was not acceptable. On June 28, a “salishi sabha” or kangaroo court was called, during which the main accused, TMC’s Tajimul Islam alias JCB, showed up. Clad in a black T-shirt and holding a weapon that seemed custom-made to mete out public justice, it was Islam who led the assault, she said. Surrounded by a crowd of dozens, the man and the woman were flogged relentlessly, even as they writhed in pain on the ground and begged for mercy. The incident took place a stone’s throw from the woman’s home.
The woman said she had feared such “punishment and assault” but she was not prepared for the video to go viral. “What happened here would have stayed here if the video didn’t spread,” she said.
It was in the wake of the video that police slapped an attempted murder charge and the case set off widespread outrage.
Islam, arrested on Sunday, is now in police custody, also booked under charges of molestation and assault. “I don’t know him, I didn’t see him. Who hit me, I have no knowledge,” the woman said. She is trying to put up a brave face. “I am fine now. This (the 35-year-old’s house) is my home now, and I will not go back,” she said. “I was kicked, beaten up and abused for falling in love, but perhaps it was because I broke societal norms.”
She said she has two children from her 18 years of marriage. “They are grown up. Let me live my life now,” she said. “I knew I would go through the insaaf (justice) and then live life on my terms.”
After the incident, which has become a political flashpoint in the state, the administration has instructed police to increase patrolling in rural areas and keep a check on salishi sabhas, a senior official told The Indian Express.
A woman in her 40s, who witnessed the flogging, said, “I wanted to stop the mob but you can’t just challenge the system. She was beaten up more than the man.”
Another villager said “internal matters such as family disputes are solved internally” and “we go to the police for bigger matters”.
