A 27-year-old Muslim student from Aliah University, Rezaul Islam Mondal, was assaulted by 10–12 men on a Sealdah-bound train in West Bengal. The attackers, reportedly linked to Hindutva groups, beat him, pulled his beard, and accused him of being a “Bangladeshi.”
Rezaul, a final-year M.Tech student from Hooghly’s Meshera village, was returning from the Bishwa Ijtema gathering in Bangladesh with four friends when the attack occurred. It began after a dispute over luggage space escalated, with the group attempting to force him from his seat and hurling communal slurs.
For nearly an hour, they punched and kicked him, removed his skullcap, and threatened to throw him off the moving train. When his friend, Sajid Mirza, tried to record the attack, he was also threatened.
Rezaul initially faced police refusal to file a complaint at Haripal station but succeeded at Sealdah GRP on February 5. A case has been registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and railway police are investigating.
The attack has drawn political condemnation. CPI(M) MP Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya linked it to rising RSS-backed communalism in Bengal, while ISF MLA Nawsad Siddique criticized both the BJP’s Hindutva politics and the TMC government’s inaction.