Author: TNN
Publication: The Times of India
Date: December 27, 2008
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Kolkata_/Teacher_couple_hounded_by_CPM_men/articleshow/3898672.cms
The aamra and ora us and them psyche that
determines who are sheltered safely in their homes and who remain homeless
in trouble zones like Nandigram and Keshpur, seems to have reached the chief
minister's constituency, the Jadavpur area, too.
A teacher couple has allegedly been hounded
out of their rented home by CPM toughs because they were Trinamool Congress
sympathizers. Nirmalya Das and his wife Rakhi were "ordered" to
move out of a rented flat in East Jadavpur's Prantik Nayabandh by the year-end.
On Christmas Day, the panic-stricken couple started shifting furniture and
household goods to another flat they have rented in nearby Nayabandh Avenue.
They are desperate to move in on New Year's Day. That's when the deadline'
ends.
But there was worse in store. The couple say
they started receiving threats from the CPM local Nagarik Committee that they
would not be allowed to live in that flat too. Their "lives would be
made hell" if they lived anywhere in Jadavpur, they were warned.
Nirmalya, who teaches at a Beliaghata high
school, is the Bankura district observer for the Trinamool's education cell.
His wife teaches at a Kakdwip school. They lived in a rented flat in Prantik
Nayabandh for one-and-a-half years with their five-year-old daughter Nilparna.
"A few days ago, our landlady Lipika
Hazra told us she had come under pressure from the CPM's local Nagarik Committee
to ensure that we leave the place. She said she had no option but to give
us time till the year-end to move out. We have rented another flat on Nayabandh
Avenue," Nirmalya said.
The owner of the second flat, Ajit Kumar Chowdhury,
handed over the keys to the Dases on Christmas Eve itself although they were
supposed to move in on New Year's Day. The couple started moving in the furniture
on Thursday. Midway through this, the landlord's wife Dipti called them up
to their flat (the Chowdhurys live in the same building) and told them that
the CPM Nagarik Committee had warned her and her husband that the Das' would
not be allowed to live there either because of their political affiliation.
Rakhi then decided to meet Gautam Dutta, the
Nagarik Committee secretary for ward 109, in which the area falls, to try
and sort out the issue. "He repeated the threat directly to me,"
alleged Rakhi. "He also told me that my husband was an anti-social and
that a political person' like him would not be allowed to stay in the area,"
she said. "Gautam then told me, If you still insist on staying here,
there could be danger ahead for you'," claimed Rakhi.
Gautam denied the allegation. He claimed that
it was the landlord, Ajit Kumar Chowdhury, who approached him after the Das
couple had rented the flat. "The Chowdhurys told me about Nirmalya's
political background and said they had heard he had the reputation of being
a troublemaker. So, I told them that they had the right not to rent out their
flat to the Dases if they are involved in trouble," Gautam told TOI.
However, when TOI contacted the landlord's
wife, she denied that they had approached Gautam. "I and my husband want
to rent out our flat to the teacher couple," she asserted. In the face
of allegations and denials, Gautam said if the Dases do move into the flat
they have rented, the Nagarik Committee would have no objection. But the jittery
Nirmalya decided to take no chances and filed a complaint at East Jadavpur
police station.