A 27-year-old Muslim student of Aliah University was assaulted on a Sealdah-bound train in West Bengal by a group of 10–12 Hindutva men.
The attackers allegedly beat him, pulled his beard, and threatened to throw him off the train, accusing him of being a “Bangladeshi,” The Observer Post reported.
Rezaul Islam Mondal, a final-year M.Tech student and a resident of Hooghly district’s Meshera village, was returning from the Bishwa Ijtema religious gathering in Bangladesh along with four friends when the incident took place on a train from Gede station to Sealdah.
According to Rezaul, the issue began when a passenger asked him to remove his trolley bag from the luggage rack. Though he obeyed without protest, a group of men attempted to force him out of his seat. They shouted communal slurs, calling him a “Bangladeshi” when he resisted.
For nearly an hour, about a dozen people attacked him, despite him stating that he is an Indian citizen.
Rezaul was repeatedly punched and kicked, his skullcap was forcibly removed, his hair and beard were pulled, and he was subjected to verbal abuse. Some attackers even urged others to throw him off the moving train.
When his friend, Sajid Mirza, attempted to record the assault, he was met with threats of being thrown off the train.
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.