Kolkata, 22 April (H.S.):The chilling horror unleashed by a violent Muslim mob in Murshidabad, West Bengal, has left behind stories that will haunt generations. One such story is of Saptami Mandal — a new mother who had barely recovered from childbirth when she was forced to flee her burning home with her seven-day-old infant strapped to her shoulder. Her crime? Being Hindu in a region where Hindu homes were singled out, looted, and torched.

On the night of April 12, a savage wave of violence swept through Hindu neighborhoods in Dhulian. Nearly 70 percent of the local population—Muslim—unleashed a coordinated attack on the minority 20 percent Hindus. Rocks shattered windows, fire devoured homes, and terror silenced newborn cries.

“Our neighbor’s house was set on fire first,” Saptami recalls, her voice trembling. “They threw stones at our house next. We hid inside. My baby’s condition started deteriorating. When they came for us, we thought it was the end.”

And it would have been — had the Border Security Force not arrived when it did.

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If BSF had taken five more minutes, we would be dead

Saptami says those minutes were the difference between life and death. “They had surrounded our house. We were next. The mob wasn’t just looking to burn, they wanted to strip us of everything — our dignity, our lives.”

She placed her newborn on her shoulder and ran, barefoot and bleeding, through the darkness. With help from other fleeing villagers, she crossed a river in a boat under the cover of night. “We reached Malda and took shelter in a village. A Hindu family gave us food, clothes, and a place to sleep. The next day, we were moved to a school in Parlalpur. That school became our refugee camp.”

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Refugees in our own homeland

Saptami’s mother, Maheshwari Mandal, adds, “We escaped with our lives, but lost everything else. We are now refugees in our own land, surviving on the mercy of strangers.”

Many other women like Tulorani Mandal, Pratima Mandal, Namita Mandal, and Mousumi still live in fear, displaced from their homes, surviving in temporary shelters. Their demand is simple but desperate: permanent BSF camps in their villages. “We won’t return without security. Who will save us if they come again?”

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Administration claims relief, but we were threatened, not protected

Block Development Officer Sukanta Sikdar claims the administration has provided food, milk for infants, essentials for women, and tarpaulin shelters. But those inside the camps tell a very different story. They accuse the police of locking them inside school buildings, denying contact with relatives, and threatening them into silence.

“The food was inedible. We were not even allowed to speak to journalists,” said one camp resident. “They forced us to return to the same place where the Muslim mob had hunted us like animals.”

For families like Saptami’s, survival is now a daily question. They fear the next nightfall, the next riot, the next moment when help might not come in time.

A seven-day-old child was carried across a river by a mother who wasn’t even healed yet — and now, that child will grow up knowing his first journey in this world was to flee a mob in his own country.

Hindusthan Samachar / Satya Prakash Singh