Question: Kotha theke (From where are you)?

Answer: Bolpur .

Q: Keno (Why )?

A: Ami reporter (I am a reporter).

Q: Kon TV (Which TV)?

A: TV na, kagoj (Not from a TV channel, from a newspaper).

Q: Bangla (Are you from a Bengali paper )?

A: Na, Ingriji (No, English )?

 

The questions were not from a police officer. They were all fired by a homemaker in Parui, Nargis Biwi, standing at her doorstep.

The inquisition was not over, though.

Nargis called up someone on her cellphone and relayed the details of the stranger she had just heard. Considering that she stays in a BJP-dominated village, the person on the other side would have been a local party leader.

Once she got the nod, Nargis was willing to speak.

Nargis, 45, has to fend for herself. Her husband was in jail, she said, for alleged involvement in a clash and bombing between Trinamul and the BJP in Sattor in January. Her two sons are in hiding because they are wanted by the police in the same clash.

In powder-keg Parui, Nargis's questions are not unusual, but a routine drill in almost every home. Any woman who encounters an unfamiliar face here asks such questions.

As the women are almost always on their own at home - the husbands, brothers, sons are on the run - they keep looking over their shoulders, just in case.

The fear of the other - the police and the rival party - is all pervasive, also party-neutral.

Generally, the only visitors during the day are "TV people", not the police or the "other party", who raid villages at night.

Nargis, a school dropout, could surprise strangers with her knowledge and use of a certain kind of English words - raids, police picket, camp, FIR, general diary.

She learnt these words since 2013, from the time Trinamul in Birbhum started splintering and villagers started drifting to the BJP.

While Nargis, her neighbouring women and kids learnt new words of law enforcement, the rest of Bengal got acquainted with names of villages never heard before - Makhra, Choumandalpur, Sattor, all in Birbhum, all clash spots of Trinamul, the BJP and the police.

Nargis said her home was raided eight times after her sons escaped and her husband was cuffed and taken away last month - he is now in the Suri district correctional home. "Some policemen threatened me that they will rape me if I did not tell them where my brothers are," Nargis's 15-year-old daughter said.

Trouble started in Birbhum days before the panchayat elections of 2013 when some Trinamul workers who were denied tickets decided to contest as Independents.

Adding fuel to the already charged political air, district Trinamul chief Anubrata Mondal exhorted Trinamul supporters to burn the homes of rebels trying to contest as Independents, and bomb the police if they tried to intervene. The speech was made on July 17, 2013.

Four days later, Sagar Ghosh, whose son Hriday had decided to contest as an Independent, was shot dead allegedly by men loyal to Mondal in Parui. A case on the murder is on in the Supreme Court.

Many Trinamul rebels, scared of attacks from their one-time comrades, joined the BJP, hoping for protection from leaders of a party that was looking to cast a wider net in Bengal.

Parui, a cluster of 29 mostly Muslim-dominated villages, became the base from where the BJP started challenging Trinamul in rural Bengal after the panchayat elections.

The political switch came at a huge price for the people of Parui - especially the women and children - irrespective of which party held sway in a village.

Youths who stayed back also got sucked into the vortex of clashes, bombing and raids.

In Chatarbandhi village in Parui, a youth, who did not want to be named, said he had completed his masters in geography from a university in another district and had come back home last year to prepare for public service job exams.

But the training he gained was in making and throwing bombs.

Why did he not leave the village?

"I can leave, but my family will be exposed to the violence. I am here to protect my family. I did not know how to throw a bomb. Now I know," the youth said.

He said his family members were BJP sympathisers. "They are harassed by Trinamul people for the smallest possible thing. How can I leave them in this state?"

All the seven gram panchayats in Parui are Trinamul-controlled.

Asked why he did not want to be named, or even not let the name of his university be published, the youth said: "In this place, there are not too many boys with college degrees."

Boys and girls much younger than the youth have stopped going to school to be of some help to their mothers at home.

Hasnehana Bibi, a 36-year-old mother of four, said her husband, paddy trader Bodiujjaman, was arrested in connection with a murder case in Parui's Makhra where three persons were killed in clashes last October.

"I don't know when he is going to come back," she said. Hasnehana's family are with the BJP now.

Her dream of sending one of her four children, Akram, to college was over, she said. The 14-year-old is the brightest among her children, Hasnehana said. "But now I have told him not to go to school till his father comes home, and help me sell the paddy."

Hasnehana's neighbour in Choumandalpur is Anjumanwara Bibi, a local Trinamul panchayat member.

All the time while speaking, she kept looking back, over her shoulder, as if she was being watched. "I am looking out for the police. People from the other party may also come with bombs," she said.

Like Akram, Julekha Khatun, a Class VIII student in Hansra High School, stopped attending classes after her father Sheikh Jalinur was arrested following the October clashes in Makhra. He has been accused of murder.

Julekha's mother Shamina Bibi would not speak. Julekha burst into tears while talking about their life now. "My father is a paikar (a cattle seller). My brother studies Bengali honours in a Suri college. We have to send Rs 2,500 every month to him."

Julekha said the constant worry about money and the thought of raids chased her all the time. "I don't feel like going to school now," she said.

She said when alleged Trinamul supporters raided Makhra on October 27, the family and all her neighbours hid in paddy fields.

Three persons died of bomb and bullet injuries when alleged Trinamul supporters entered Makhra to recapture the village on the morning of October 27. One of the three killed was a 24-year-old BJP supporter who was mending a road. Around 1pm the same day, BJP activists regrouped and launched a counter-attack in which two Trinamul supporters fell to bombs.

The assumption that the "other party" or the police may not harass women if the men are not at home may not be correct.

On January 17, a Birbhum police team and six Trinamul activists went to Bud Bud in Burdwan, 15km from the Birbhum border, and allegedly tortured a woman, seeking details of her BJP-supporter nephew.

According to the FIR lodged by the lady's husband in Illambazar, some of the policemen rubbed nettle leaves - which on contact with skin cause sharp itches - on the woman's private parts.

In the last five months, the police have counted 50 clashes between Trinamul and the BJP. Over 90 people have been arrested. BJP leaders claimed most of the arrested were their supporters.

A police officer who has seen the clashes and raids in Parui since 2013 said: "It looks like Parui will be a hotbed of violence till the 2016 Assembly elections."

He said if the police had not conducted the nightly raids every day last year, the number of clashes would have been many more. Parui, spanning 140sqkm, has six police pickets now.

Both Trinamul and the BJP leaders know that the poor have borne the brunt of the turf battles, but neither side will accept its role in the violence.

"I know that a few of our party supporters who have been dragged into false cases and are now either on the run or in jail," Sheikh Mustaq Hussein, a Trinamul district general secretary in charge of Parui, said.

Hussein trashed allegations of Trinamul raids to take back villages now in the BJP's control. "The BJP is responsible for all the violence. They tried to take control of the villages and triggered the clashes. Our party people tried to protect themselves," he said.

BJP district president Doodh Kumar Mondal echoed Hussein's words, but in his own party's defence. "We want peace in the area. But Trinamul is always trying to attack to regain the villages. Our party supporters tried to save themselves."