CM calls cow vigilante victim’s parents, promises job to kin
Times of India | 2 September 2024
Kolkata: CM Mamata Banerjee on Sunday called the grieving parents of Sabir Malik (24), a migrant worker from Basanti in South 24 Parganas who was allegedly lynched in Haryana’s Charkhi Dadri district on Aug 28 on the suspicion that he and two others were eating beef.
Samirul Islam, Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP and chairman of the migrant workers’ welfare board, also visited the family.Islam told TOI: “The CM has called the family and expressed her condolences. She has promised a job to a family member.” They will also be receiving compensation.
Malik had been working as a ragpicker and doing odd jobs for the past two years in Haryana. He left behind a wife, a three-year-old daughter, elderly parents and a brother. .
“The family said he and two Assamese roommates were accused of being Bangladeshi. Hundreds of workers from Bengal were tortured in BJP’s Odisha too. Bengal has always hosted migrant workers from other states, everyone has lived peacefully. BJP-governed states should learn from Bengal,” Islam said.
Seven men, including two minors, associated with a cow vigilante group were apprehended on Aug 29.
The office of TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee posted on X: “The loss of Sabir Malik is a tragedy, especially for a family that relied on him as their sole breadwinner. To support them in this difficult time, Shri @abhishekaitc has extended financial assistance of Rs. 3 lakh, ensuring the family’s financial security in his absence.”
“The shocking lynching in Charkhi Dadri is condemnable and unacceptable. Sabir Malik... was lynched by so called cow vigilantes simply for exercising his own choice in his food and eating a certain kind of meat according to his own choice,” TMC Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose said on X . “Why is it that ten years later these kinds of acts of murder by cow vigilantes are going on and on as if these cow vigilantes enjoy impunity?.. And what do they say about breakdown in BJP ruled states about law and order?... BJP should look inwards before it casts aspersions on other opposition rule states,” she added.