Gunning for victory in Bengal

The 2019 Lok Sabha election in West Bengal is a traumatic memory for Ali Hussain Mansuri, a resident of Barrackpore, about 50 km Kolkata. From a few days after the polls in 2019 till weeks before the Assembly polls of 2021, Mansuri went knocking on the doors of the Bhatpara police station with two complaints: one against the vandalism and looting of his shop and the other against his house being set on fire. In both the complaints, addressed to the officer-in charge of Bhatpara police station, which have been stamped as received, Mansuri mentions “violence and danga (riot)” in May 2019. Almost a month after the riots, which erupted on the day the by-polls to the Bhatpara Assembly seat were held in Barrackpore, on May 19, the people of Darba Line returned home under police protection, but Mansuri did not. He chose to live about 500 metres away from his earlier residence near Choti Masjid. Since then, he has been going around distributing copies of the police complaints to whoever he thinks might be able to help him.