Bengal Youth Films His Broken School, Days Later His Father Is Dead. Now a Party of "Cockroaches" Wants Answers

Bankura- A delegation from the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) travelled to Karisunda village in Bankura district on Monday to meet the family of 25-year-old Shaik Abdul Hafeez, days after his father died following what the party has called a "brutal and targeted attack" over a school-infrastructure campaign.

The delegation was led by CJP Co-convener Ashutosh Ranka and included senior party members Vijay Mallangi, Ankit Bhardwaj, Akash Prem and Sudhir Sangwan. They were joined on the ground by the party's West Bengal team, including Maruf and Dedipya Ganguly.

According to the CJP's account, Hafeez had taken part in the party's nationwide "School Thik Karo" campaign, visiting his old government school in the village to document its poor condition. According to Hafeez, on August 13, he visited the local government school in his village in the Karisunda area to assess the condition of the school’s infrastructure as part of the CJP’s nationwide campaign.

Later that evening, armed individuals, whom he identified as alleged “local BJP workers”, allegedly forcibly entered his house and demanded that he record a video statement apologising for highlighting the school’s conditions while claiming that he had done so under external influence. When Hafeez refused to comply, the miscreants allegedly attacked him. Hafeez sustained a severe neck injury, while his father, Janab Mafik, who had intervened to save his son, suffered a critical blunt-force trauma to the head.

The attack, the CJP says, did not end there, it escalated into a second, armed assault at the hospital where the injured were taken for treatment.

The CJP has further alleged that local police, despite receiving timely alerts about the threat, failed to provide protection to the family.

Hafeez's father sustained severe injuries in the assault and succumbed to them on August 15. Before he died, he is said to have told his son: "Don't worry about anything. You just do whatever you can do for our country"-- words the family says they now carry as his final wish.

Speaking to the visiting delegation, Abdul Hafeez made clear that the family is not seeking monetary compensation for their loss. Their sole demand, he said, is justice for his father, delivered through accountability for everyone involved in the attack, and the establishment of a proper government school for poor children in the village.

Condemning the killing, CJP Co-convener Ashutosh Ranka did not mince words. "The sheer brutality and calculated malice of this attack are bone-chilling," he said. "What kind of monstrous mindset drives individuals to bring sharp knives and talwars to butcher an innocent family over an education campaign?"

Ranka went further, alleging a deeper motive behind the violence. He claimed that many BJP MLAs and MPs own private schools, and suggested this financial interest is why public school infrastructure is left to rot, forcing poor families who cannot afford private education to either suffer in silence or pay up. "When you are asked for basic structural accountability, you just go out and kill people as if you are the biggest goons on the block," he said, adding a warning to the political establishment: "This country is watching your actions."

CJP's four-point charter of demands & 10 days ultimatum

The party has placed a formal, four-point charter of demands before the administration:

1. Immediate FIR: Register an FIR against all accused, trace every absconding suspect, and ensure all those responsible are brought to justice.

2. Impartial investigation: Order a court-monitored, independent probe into allegations of police complicity, negligence and misconduct in handling the incident.

3. State protection : Provide round-the-clock security to Abdul Hafeez and his family.

4. A school, not a settlement : Honour the family's rejection of monetary compensation by setting up a public school named after Hafeez's late father.

The CJP has given the local administration a strict 10-day deadline to act on these demands. Should the authorities fail to respond with concrete action within that window, the party has warned it will mobilise its supporters for a peaceful gherao of the District Magistrate's office in Bankura, to press for justice and accountability.