After vandalising idols, pandals and targeting Hindu devotees during the Durga Puja celebrations, radical Islamists have set their eyes on Lakshmi Puja. On Wednesday, Lakshmi Puja was celebrated. BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari shared details on X (formerly Twitter) of one such act of vandalism carried out in the Diamond Harbour area in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas.
A video was shared by the BJP leader where the idol of Goddess Lakshmi stood vandalised and wrote in Bengali, “Idol of Mother Lakshmi of Bawali Rathtala Puja Committee of Bajbaj Assembly of South 24 Parganas was attacked by jihadists.”
He raised concerns about how the West Bengal, under Mamata Banerjee’s leadership, was going the way of Bangladesh. “Following recent incidents in Garden Reach, Kolkata, and Shyampur, Howrah, Diamond Harbour has now seen similar tensions, with Hindu communities expressing a growing sense of betrayal. The latest incident involved the desecration of a Lakshmi idol at the Bawali Rathtala Puja Committee in Bajbaj, South 24 Parganas.
In West Bengal, many Hindus feel that their right to practice their religion is increasingly under threat, drawing comparisons to incidents in Bangladesh where Hindu practices have faced disruption. There has been little to no action from the authorities despite past incidents, such as the vandalism of Goddess Durga at the same location as few years ago.
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‘The state police remain silent, and No arrests have been made and the state police remain silent which has fueled allegations of a political climate of appeasement under the Mamata Banerjee government. I urge Hindus to wake up now, otherwise they will not be able to perform puja-archana in their own homes,” Suvendu Adhikari wrote, going on to dub the situation as the “Diamond Harbour Model in Lakshmi Puja.
The West Bengal BJP also took to X on Wednesday, to share the details of a similar incident of vandalism of the Lakshmi idol in West Bengal’s Duplexpatti Kumor area, Chandannagar, Hooghly. On Sunday, Muslim mobs went on a rampage in Shyampur in the Howrah district of West Bengal. They attacked a Durga Puja pandal, vandalised the idol of the Hindu deity and set shops ablaze.
The Shyampur Bazaar Babasyayi Samiti organised an art competition wherein participants were asked to draw ’eminent personalities of different religions’ on the occasion of Durga Puja. ‘The organisers displayed pictures of Prophets of all religions to educate Hindu children’, as per Hindu Devdutta Maji, Hindu activist. During the course of the ‘appeasement’, they also put up pictures of Prophet Muhammad.
Following this, Muslim mobs stormed the streets of Shyampur to avenge the insult to Prophet Muhammad. The visuals surfaced on the social media where it could be seen that the idol of Goddess Durga was broken. Several shops and establishments were set on fire. The violent Muslim mob also attacked the police and Hindu devotees with stones.
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