Till the middle of last week, Hafiz Mohammed Shahrukh Halder would travel more than 120km every day to work, changing trains and buses multiple times.
He now refuses to leave his home in Chunakhali, Canning, except to offer namaz at the local mosque when he steps out cocooned by family members.
Haunted by “atonko” (fear) since being thrashed and thrown out of a train for refusing to chant “Jai Shri Ram”, the 23-year-old spends most of his time wondering whether this is the same Bengal where he grew up.
“This isn’t the Bengal I have known since childhood,” Shahrukh, who teaches Arabic at a madarsa in Hiyatpur near Arambagh, Hooghly, said at his home, 54km south of Calcutta.
“Bengal used to be so peaceful, just like the poet Nazrul Islam had penned: ‘Eki brintey duti kusum Hindu Musalman (Two flowers on a single stalk, Hindu and Muslim)’. I had never before faced such an attack.”
On June 20, Shahrukh was on a Sealdah-bound train on his way to work when he was beaten up by alleged members of the Hindu Samhati for wearing a skullcap, kurta and a beard and refusing to chant “Jai Shri Ram”.
As the train rolled into Park Circus station, Shahrukh says he was pushed out. By then, he had a swollen and bruised eye, which a doctor has attributed to a blood clot.
“I want all these men punished. They have done the same in Jharkhand (where Tabrez Ansari, 24, died after being beaten by a mob amid suggestions that he had been asked to chant Hindu religious slogans),” Shahrukh told The Telegraph on Friday.
“Unless these attacks stop, it would become difficult for some of us to step out on the roads, attend prayers and return at night.”
He added: “Muslims will be at the receiving end. There will be a sense of restlessness. Kintu ami to shantir Bangla ke chintam (Yet I knew a Bengal of peace).”
Visitors from various social organisations have been making a beeline for his home since the attack but a fearful Shahrukh refuses to meet them. In the past eight days, he has left his village just once: to see an eye doctor in Calcutta.
“The feeling of fear is still very strong. It just refuses to go away. The way they beat me up, it was Allah who saved me,” Shahrukh said.
“If 20-odd men beat up one person, you can understand, ekta atonko achhey moner bhitorey (there’s fear in my mind).”
He is thankful for one visit, though. Around 9pm on Wednesday, a team of officers from Basanti police station had arrived at his home to hand over a cheque for Rs 50,000, shortly after chief minister Mamata Banerjee had assured support to the family.
