New Delhi: Victims and reporters at the ‘Shifting the Lens’ event recounted the horrors of Bengal’s 2021 post-election violence. BJP MLA Agnimitra Paul described Murshidabad’s attacks: “After Friday Namaz, mobs burned Hindu homes, raped women, and vandalized nine temples.”
Journalist Deep Halder faced police retaliation for reporting the crimes. “I tweeted about two raped women—Bengal Police called it ‘fake news’,” he said, adding that depicting Bengal’s reality would resemble “Mirzapur, not Panchayat.”
Nishant Azad, who documented the violence, spoke of villages where Hindus were “forced onto boats to escape.” One survivor told him, “They didn’t kill us—they wanted us gone forever.”
Ketkar criticized media silence: “A false narrative blames BJP, but why no riots in BJP-ruled states?” The event ended with a call to break the cycle of impunity.
