A day after her release from the Alipore Correctional Home for Women in Calcutta’s Alipore, Meenakshi Mukherjee, the state secretary of the CPM’s youth wing the Democratic Youth Federation of India was at the local market near the organisation’s office on AJC Bose Road in Calcutta’s Taltala area, occupied with daily chores of life.

“It is difficult to imagine there is an administration in Bengal. Instead of the people, the weaker sections of society, this administration protects criminals,” she told TheTelegraphOnline.

“If anyone says a word against the government, the police and other officials jump to protect it. They can do as they please, assault, torture. Anis, Sudipto (Gupta killed in 2012 in police custody), Maidul (Islam Midya killed following a lathicharge by police during a march to the secretariat at Howrah in February 2021) are some of the names. There are many other comrades and innocent people who have been framed in false cases and put behind bars. Our fight is to change the system which has destroyed all the pillars of democracy in Bengal,” Meenakshi said over the phone from Dinesh Majumdar Bhawan in Calcutta’s Taltala area, her temporary address.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had given a 15-day deadline for the special investigation team set up by the government to probe and submit its report. Anis, a resident of a village in Howrah’s Amta, was found lying on the ground adjacent to his house after an armed policeman and three civic police volunteers went to see him at his home well after midnight of February 18. Eight days later, while leading a protest at Panchla, Meenakshi and 15 others were arrested after a lathicharge by police. All 16 were granted conditional bail on Monday and released on Tuesday.

On Wednesday afternoon at 4pm, Left students and youth organisations were scheduled to hold a march from College Street to Moulali as the deadline given by the chief minister had long expired. Meenakshi is unlikely to join the rally.

She has been diagnosed with typhoid since her release from prison on Tuesday and says that she is still writhing with pain in her head, waist, lower abdomen and legs.

The 36-year-old, along with two others, were dragged along the stairs from the ground floor office of the Superintendent of Police (Howrah) to a floor upstairs. Even after 11 days, the pain and the scars from the wounds remain.

“At the police lock-up, our comrades were stripped naked and beaten for three hours,” alleged Meenakshi. “At the SP’s office, me and two other comrades were dragged on the stairs as they took us to a floor upstairs. The excesses that we saw the police commit that day is unthinkable,” she said.

Mamata has herself faced several police cases in her younger days when she earned a name as a streetfighter. In January 2006, months before the Assembly polls, a Barasat court had directed the Calcutta Police to arrest her. Eventually Mamata never had to spend a day behind bars when the Left Front ran the government, though there were several alleged attacks on her.

Since her release from prison on Tuesday afternoon, Meenakshi has stayed back in Calcutta at the DYFI state headquarters, Dinesh Mazumdar Bhawan, where her parents came to meet her.

Having cut her teeth in student politics in the mid-2000s, Meenakshi has been detained several times though this was her first experience inside a correctional home.

“Whatever happened was at the SP’s office. Inside the jail there was no trouble. We were like any other criminals,” Meenakshi said. “Though our lawyers had obtained permission for us to be allowed to read, nothing political was allowed inside. Everything was censored.”

The 36-year-old shot into fame when she made her electoral debut in the 2021 Assembly polls contesting against two heavyweights, twice-elected chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her ally-turned-bete noire Suvendu Adhikari, and eventually finished third. In Nandigram, she managed only three per cent of the total votes polled, but those 6,267 votes that she got made the difference between the two Goliaths.

Meenakshi's speeches made her a favourite with the Left and its allies including the Congress but failed to generate votes to get even one candidate elected to the legislative Assembly.

Now, Meenakshi is preparing for a longer battle. She does not believe the police brutality was because of who she was. Rather she faced what she did because of what she represented.

“This political vendetta was not directed against the individual Meenakshi Mukherjee. This was a deliberate attempt to silence those who were demanding justice for Anis. This was an attempt to take the probe off the radar,” she said. “Our battle is not just to seek punishment for those who killed Anis, we want to ensure that the men who have sworn to protect the law will not even think of committing such an act again.”

It may take some weeks before Meenakshi can hit the streets again given her wounds and health condition.

Having grown up in a village near the industrial belt of Burdwan district (now Burdwan West), Meenakshi speaks the language of the ground in a matter-of-fact way, without the polish of a Calcutta-bred Marxist, young or old, which has made her acceptable to people from all corners of Bengal.

“It is not about an individual. As a worker it is my responsibility to participate in the movement. But this is far bigger than me. Today, it has become the movement of students and youths,” she said.