Public Parades, Arrests, and Political Tension in West Bengal

Jahangir Khan . The name keeps coming up. Arrested by the West Bengal police nine days ago, and now? He’s been paraded. Three times, in his own stronghold, Falta.

It’s a spectacle, you have to admit that. Retaliation, mostly. His supporters his wife leading the charge they aren't sitting down. They are protesting. Trying to storm police stations just to get him released. The air is thick with this tension.

But Khan isn't alone in this parade business. It’s getting wider. With the political tide turning, it feels like a wave washing over things. Several TMC leaders , and their hangers-on, are being paraded publicly by police or paramilitary forces across West Bengal. Strongholds are being turned into stages for this display.

What they were shown? Some reports floated around that these leaders were just wearing underclothes, handcuffs, and a rope tied right around their waist, like a leash. The Indian Express touched on it. It’s unsettling stuff.

And the way it was done some videos show them holding their ears, squatting down, publicly apologizing as they walked around. A kind of forced humility, or maybe just pure humiliation?

Then there's the legal side of things. After one of these public displays happened, some folks in Calcutta High Court, a vacation bench, got bothered by it. They asked the state government for an explanation. The circumstances. What laws were actually broken here?

The court acknowledged that people can be arrested, sure. That’s just how the system works. But they drew a line. You can't deliberately defame someone. You can't subject them to this kind of public humiliation under the guise of law enforcement. It felt like a massive overstep.

The police side is throwing out their defense, naturally. They keep saying it was purely "investigative." Reconstruction of crime scenes, they claim. But that sounds like an excuse for something much bigger.

One senior IPS officer said they were walking a very thin line. He reported that the handcuffs thing even handcuffing isn't always done unless there’s a massive threat, like terrorism or fear someone might run away. Tying a rope around the waist and parading someone? That has no basis in law at all. It just feels wrong.

Meanwhile, political figures are jumping in. TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee spoke up about this. He said the party was planning legal action against the police over these alleged public parades of their leaders. He called it a total violation of Article 21 . A breach of human rights. That’s the kind of language you expect when things escalate like this.

And then you have the flip side, the BJP angle. Umesh Rai , MLA from Howrah Uttar, speaking at some meeting about Akash Singh’s arrest, brought up a different memory. He said there was a time when Akash would roam the streets with a hundred bikes, intimidating people. But now? Now he's being paraded with a rope around his waist. He framed it as what "true Ram Rajya" looks like now. A very jarring comparison.

Akash Singh himself. Arrested on May 13th, just four days after the BJP government took over. He was paraded through Howrah. His head had been shaved. He was dressed only in a vest and underwear. It’s stark.

We hear about him differently too. Known locally as the “Don of North Howrah.” Nearly twenty criminal cases against him. Allegations of firing on police, injuring an inspector, bomb attacks during those 2021 elections, extortion, attempted murder. A heavy file.

Then there are others caught up in this mess.

Specific Incidents and Arrests

• Roy . A local TMC youth leader from Kanchrapara, North 24 Parganas. Arrested May 28th. He was paraded through the area with a rope around his waist while crowds shouted slogans. The police said he was involved in an extortion case at Bijpur Police Station and dealing illegally with materials plastic buckets meant for sanitation workers. Locals whisper that Roy had real sway, controlling who got government schemes, contracts, housing units under the TMC rule . He supposedly went into hiding after power shifted.
• Ansari from Kamarhati. A local leader, considered a close aide to Madan Mitra, one of those loyalists remaining with Mamata Banerjee after the split. Arrested May 31st. Paraded in handcuffs in Kamarhati. Police accused him of running multiple rackets and using armed intimidation to control things.
• Ahmed . Known by aliases Borey and Gabbar . President of Ward No. 36 in Shibpur, close to a former minister. His wife, Shamima Banu, was the councillor for that ward. He got arrested May 21st from Chembur in Mumbai. Later paraded through a crowded market in Sankrail, South Howrah, with a rope around his waist. The police linked him to an attack on a BJP post-result rally by some minority cell president, Shikandar Khan, where three people were hurt.
• Shahin Molla , alias Sunny . A traffic home guard. Influential in South Howrah because he was close to a former minister. Arrested May 23rd from Sankrail police regarding an extortion racket involving crores of rupees. He too was escorted through the Chaura Basti area with a rope tied around his waist, allegedly as part of the investigation.

It’s all tangled up. The pattern is disturbing. Leaders, local figures, people who held influence they are being put on display. It moves beyond simple arrests; it feels like a performance about power and control in this shifting political environment. Every time you look at these incidents, there's that sense of raw uncertainty hanging over everything. What exactly is the law supposed to protect? And what happens when the lines between policing and public spectacle get completely blurred?