‘Atrocious’ linguistic terror unleashed by BJP: CM before ‘Bhasha Andolan’
Times of India | 28 July 2025
Kolkata: Sharing a 47-second video from July 26, of a migrant from Malda narrating the injuries Delhi Police inflicted on his one-year-old child and wife, CM Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said the linguistic terror unleashed by BJP against Bengali-speakers was "atrocious" and "terrible". The CM will lead a statewide ‘Bhasa Andolan' from Birbhum on Monday.
Posting the video on X, Banerjee said: "Atrocious! Terrible! See how Delhi police brutally beat up a kid and his mother, members of a migrant family from Malda's Chanchal. See how even a child is not spared from the cruelty of violence in the regime of linguistic terror unleashed by BJP in the country against the Bengalis! Where are they taking our country now?"Farida Biwi, who lives in Delhi's Geeta Colony, told TOI over the phone that the video was of her son's wife and child. "They were detained by Delhi Police despite showing EPIC, Aadhaar and ration cards. We have been working in Delhi for the past six years. We are Indian, not Bangladeshi. They are deliberately targeting Bengali-speaking Muslims.
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Banerjee is expected to reach Birbhum late on Sunday. Ahead of the protests, Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh told reporters: "The videos reaching our party leaders (from migrants facing harassment) are nothing short of medieval brutality. This is hellish torture. In one video that has reached me, the person narrating his ordeal says he has been working in Haryana for the past two decades. People are being subjected to torture, denying them the right to show their valid documents and illegally packed off to detention centres without notices.
"Ghosh said: "What is worrisome is that even Matuas and Rajbanshis are being targeted by BJP-governed states. BJP has unleashed an atmosphere of terror. How can speaking Bengali — a constitutionally scheduled language — be a crime?"Responding to BJP's claims that the drive was meant to flush out illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingya, Ghosh said: "Rohingya have a different geo-political context. It involves Myanmar, Delhi (Centre) and the United Nations. And if you talk of illegal Bangladeshis, whose task is to stop them? The answer is BSF. For either, why are Bengali-speaking Indian citizens being harassed even when they are showing legally accepted documents.
"State finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya also launched a blistering attack on the Centre, accusing it of carrying out a "systematic and shameless assault" on Bengali identity across the country. "BJP-run states have turned the harassment of Bengalis into a strategy. But Bengal—and the global Bengali diaspora—will resist this with dignity and strength," she said.
"The Centre will be held accountable at the right time. Bengal has never insulted people from neighbouring states like Assam, Odisha, Bihar or Jharkhand. Yet, across the country, Bengalis are being humiliated, attacked and even killed—simply because they speak Bengali. Bengal knows how to respond," Bhattacharya added.