‘What will I go back to? My home has been reduced to ash’
Times of India | 16 April 2025
12 Malda: What worried eight-year-old Namita Mondal on Tuesday was that she did not have a new dress, a Poila Baisakh ritual back home.
Unaware of why she and her family had crossed the Ganga in a boat from Dhuliyan on April 12, to take refuge at Baishnabnagar's Parlalpur High School campus in Malda, Namita said: "I have been wearing the same frock for the past three days. I have so many clothes at home. I was also supposed to get a new dress today. Are there no new dresses here?"
Ratan Mandal, 5, misses the sweets served at home after pujas.
Longing for home was also evident in the elders at the makeshift shelters. Saptami Mandal, carrying her eight-day-old baby in her lap, said: "How can we return now? Our house was burnt down. Once BSF leaves, there may be another attack. I want to go back, but until the situation improves, it is impossible."
Dhuliyan's Sandhya Mandal said: "The houses have been razed to ash. To what will I return if I go back home now? There is nothing left there."
After the initial return of 20-odd families on Sunday evening, no others among the around 350 people who have taken shelter at the school have gone back. This institute is scheduled to reopen on Wednesday, but it remains unclear whether this can be done.
BJP MP Khagen Murmu visited the camp along with lawyers on Tuesday and talked to the victims about the legal process. While Murmu was welcomed, South Malda Congress MP Isha Khan Choudhury — under whose constituency Samsherganj falls — faced ‘go-back' slogans. He later accused BJP of orchestrating this reaction.