What made Chhatradhar Mahato a political fugitive

by Monobina Gupta

1 November 2009, Times of India ‎

The Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express, held up by Maoists for seven hours in West Midnapore, had this emblazoned on it: 'Chhatradhar Mahato is a good man. He is not a criminal'. Mahato, chief of the People's Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA), was imprisoned just months ago, in the aftermath of the violence that followed West Bengal's election results. The slogan on the train reinforced speculation that the PCPA wanted Mahato's release - by fair means or foul.

In general, there is enormous curiosity about Mahato, who till a few months ago, did not seem to fit the bill of a gun-toting Maoist. He can certainly talk the talk. When i met Mahato in Lalgarh in March, he spoke a democratic language far removed from guns and killings. When i arrived, Lalgarh was abuzz with news of the police having picked up three villagers (supposedly Maoists), and the murder of a PCPA activist.

Mahato was under a tree in verdant Lalgarh, busy with an organizational meeting. A smartly dressed, lanky man, he wore sunglasses and sat with comrades stuffing envelopes with hand-written notices for the PCPA's next public meeting. Mahato's brother is Sashadhar, a Maoist fugitive. But Mahato himself was a political non-entity till the mass uprising in Jangalkhand following brutal police attacks on common villagers and tribals in the wake of a Maoist plot against chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in November 2008. The sudden political upheaval catapulted Mahato to the position of PCPA chief.

He said he would talk to me after lunch. The PCPA ran a community kitchen inside a mud hut and activists ate rice and vegetable curry there. This was where i met a relaxed Mahato. For a man who had been relatively unskilled, till recently, in the art of communication, Mahato talked with clarity and precision, dissecting issues, separating the strands of violent Maoist politics from the PCPA. He appeared to be getting used to his new public profile - addressing press briefings at the Kolkata Press Club and engaging with Mahasweta Devi and other intellectuals in the city. His political trajectory began with Congress.

Born in 1964, the eldest of three brothers, Mahato studied at Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapeeth and Midnapore Day College, where he had his first taste of activism as a member of Congress' student wing, the Chhatra Parishad. Those who know him well say he was a follower of Mamata Banerjee, then a Youth Congress leader. Mahato never finished college.

Later, he would join the Trinamool Congress. In 2001, when the police began randomly picking up tribals on the charge of being Maoists, Mahato's political beliefs underwent a drastic change. By 2009, even as much of the media conflated the PCPA with the Maoists, Mahato and initially the Maoists themselves, continued to insist they were distinct organizations and had different agendas.

It is true Lalgarh barred police from entry, in line with the PCPA's diktats, but the movement remained democratic, Mahato claimed, insisting the protest could not be grounded merely as a form of resistance to police atrocity. "We cannot make it the sole cause. There are development concerns - access to drinking water, more tube-wells; the issue of autonomy of Jangalkhand," he said. In addition to their original 13-point charter of demands, the PCPA later adopted a nine-point programme seeking community rights over forests and land, recognition and promotion of the Santhali language, development of the Santhali script and autonomy for the Jangalkhand area.

Mahato was clear about the extent of influence Maoists had on the PCPA. He admitted "the Maoists are there" but claimed "they are not controlling the movement. PCPA is an autonomous body. We take our own decisions after consulting village-level committees." Ten-member committees, half of which were men and the other half women, were active in the villages.

He emphasized the movement's principled refusal to allow political parties to enter Lalgarh with banners. The rallying symbol was the PCPA, the ultimate authority, he said. Did Mahato believe in 'revolutionary violence' as preached by today's Maoists? He did not seem to fit either mould - that of the founding fathers of the 1967 armed insurrection and that of their contemporary 'progeny', the Maoists.

First, Mahato never explained the Lalgarh movement in the language of Marx or Mao. 'Class struggle' and 'armed insurrection' were never the spine of his arguments. Instead, he emphasized the need to resist police repression and bring long-delayed development to the tribal backwaters.

Second, unlike the Maoists, Mahato never spoke of capturing the Indian state through insurrection. Interestingly, the PCPA and Maoists fundamentally differed in their approach to the 2009 general elections. Mahato said the PCPA was not calling for the elections to be boycotted as this would benefit only the CPM. It was a position at odds with that of the Maoists. The PCPA demanded the elections be held without a police presence. Mahato shared his comrades' apprehension that forced police entry could trigger a violent confrontation in Lalgarh. But the violence after the elections appeared to elide the distinctions between the PCPA and Maoists. Mahato and his comrades condemned state violence but seemed to turn a blind eye to Maoist killings. This is how Chhatradhar Mahato became the 'Most Wanted', a political fugitive.

Monobina Gupta's book on contemporary Left politics in West Bengal will be published next year.

W. Bengal Law Minister visits Maoist affected West Midnapore

West Midnapore, Oct 21 (ANI): West Bengal Law Minister Rabilal Maitra visited West Bengal’s West Midnapore district on Wednesday. The visit was held a day after armed Maoists stormed a police station at Sankrail in the district and killed two police personnel besides abducting another police officer.

The Maoists, including women combatants, attacked Sankrail Police Station and robbed at least 19 firearms and several rounds of ammunition. The officer-in-charge of the police station was taken hostage.

Maoists have been demanding the release of an elusive tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato, who has been spearheading an agitation since November last year against alleged police excesses in West Midnapore’s troubled Lalgarh area. Mahato, leader of so-called 'People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA)', which has been spearheading agitation against alleged police atrocities, was nabbed from Pirka region, near Lalgarh village.

Police nabbed Mahato when he was about to give an interview to a journalist. Mahato had been giving regular interviews when the paramilitary forces and the state police had launched the anti-Maoist operations in Lalgarh, the place declared as a liberated zone by the Maoists, on June 19 forcing him to go underground for some time.

Mahato had a free run for nine months with the police withdrawing from the camps, before the paramilitary troops recaptured Lalgarh from the Maoists who were fuelling the local agitations.

‘MAOISTS’ HAVE FRESH PLANS TO ASSASSINATE BUDDHADEB

B PRASANT From KOLKATA : Police investigations reveal that the CPI (Maoist) has plans afoot to attempt and assassinate Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in Kolkata. There is another plan in the pipeline to mount an assault on the Writers’ Buildings with hundreds of trained armed cadres. The interrogation of a couple of top level left sectarian leaders has led the police to these conclusions. Suicide attacks, too, are not ruled out.

BIMAN REACTS
Speaking to People’s Democracy, Biman Basu, state secretary of Bengal CPI (M) said that the ‘Trinamulis and all their associates, cohorts, lackeys and underlings, here and abroad, including the self-styled ‘Maoists’ are planning all the while to assassinate our Party leaders and workers. ‘This,’ said Biman ‘is a condemnable and comprehensively counter-democratic exercise.’

Biman continued to say that ‘they have done so in the past and the present disclosure clearly depicts that these reactionary forces and their patrons in the ruling classes and the big media, have not learnt any lesson, are continuing apace to engage in nefarious acts of commission. There is need to isolate them and identify them as the enemy of the people.’

KOLKATA RENDEZVOUS
The ‘Maoists’ confessed that this time the fresh ‘place of occurrence’ (‘PO’ in military parlance) has been chosen to be Kolkata city and its surrounds for the performance of the nefarious acts that these goons have carried out with impunity in Midnapore west in particular, in the past, especially the recent past.

The assassins organised and held a series of meetings very recently, probably last week, in a house (location unrevealed) in downtown Kolkata. At least one of the meetings saw the national-level leaders of the criminals present including the shadowy figure of ‘Kishanji.’ The ‘Maoists’ came to and went away from the rendezvous in luxury vehicles of a wealthy and well-known person who resides in the city and is known a great anti-CPI (M) frame of mind.

Incidentally, earlier reports from the police sources have already revealed that a couple of dozen-odd persons of the metropolis have kept close touch with the killers and have provided them not merely with news and views but leadership material as well.

Added to these ‘Maoist’-loving individuals are at least four political parties who act as the goons’ patrons and co-conspirators against the CPI (M) and the Left Front government, especially chief minister Buddhadeb. Names and addresses of the individual patrons of the murderers are now made known to the police who prefer not to go public at the moment.

INTERVIEW
On Saturday 10 October, the Trinamuli supremo gave a long interview to her favourite channel Star Ananda, a Patrika group affiliate. There she invited ‘Kishanji’ for a ‘bi-lateral talk,’ and even went so far as to say that the killers ‘have executed a series of good work,’ without bothering to expand on her cryptic comments.

The chieftain once again spoke of her opposition to the ops of the joint forces at and around Lalgarh. The chief also pointed out that the killing of the goon Nishikanta Mondal in Midnapore east was ‘probably not the work of ‘Maoists’.’ We in this connection remember that the ‘Maoists’ have already expressed their eagerness to ‘see the Trinamuli leader as the Bengal chief minister.’

MURDEROUS PLAN
The entire plan to assassinate Buddhadeb fulminated over the past four months, we learn. The action was to be led by Sasadhar Mahato, the ever-loving brother-at-arms of the Trinamuli goon Chhatradhar Mahato, and by Sasadhar’s wife ‘Suchitra’ who is a hard-core member of the armed squad leadership of the ‘Maoists,’ having received arms training in neighbouring Jharkhand in the Giridih forests.

A question that is obvious for the asking is the modus operandi of so many criminals moving freely in the city, evading, even eluding, the extensive police network, particularly of the plainclothesmen belonging to the special branch (SB), and the criminal investigation branch (CID), plus the central agencies like the intelligence branch or IB.

The police response borders on naïveté but is plausible enough to be mentioned. It is noted that the criminals moved around under cover of the protective kind a large number of anti-Communist ‘intellectuals’ and performing artistes whose photos, it needs mention, deep in consultation with Chhatradhar Mahato in the forest clearings of Midnapore west, have already appeared in the media.

ADJUTANTS OF KILLERS
The police have of late taken into custody two individuals from Jadavpur who led and organised two pro-‘Maoist’ outfits. The fora are the ‘Lalgarh Solidarity Manch,’ and the ‘Mass Resistance Manch.’ At least one of the two criminals interrogated has named the top floor of a multi-storied building at Prafulla Sarkar Street near to the place where the vast offices of the Patrika group is located, as a ‘safe house’ for the killers and their adjutants..

Another place of rendezvous has been a building on Lenin Sarani near where the office of a ‘political outfit’ of sorts is located, and the outfit is known for its strong and violent antipathy towards the CPI (M) as well as for their oozing sympathy for the Trinamulis and the ‘Maoists.’ Always in attendance at the meetings among others were the brothers Sasadhar and Chhatradhar. The latter is presently in jail custody after having spent a week or so in police custody.(INN)

CHHATRADHAR RAN EXTORTION RACKET IN JANGAL MAHAL

KOLKATA: Interrogation by the Bengal police reveals that Chhatradhar has been running a wide network of ‘Maoist’-led extortion ring in the entire jangal mahal of Midnapore west and even in adjoining districts.

The funds amounted to a whopping Rs 15 lakh per month. Money was extracted from the poorest of the poor to the smallholders, khet mazdoors, kisans, and agricultural labourers. The act of extortion was executed with maximum brutality by the so-called village defence squads of the ‘Maoists’ from across the border.

The police sources reveal that there has been continuous bickering and fall-out among the members of the PCAPA, the ‘civil society,’ and the ‘Maoists,’ with the Trinamulis goons interloping, on the basis on which the funds would be utilised (!).

‘CHILD SOLDIERS’
In between, we learn from our trip to Jharkhand that the ‘Maoists’ have started training up a children’s army in the style of the other notorious ‘Maoist’ group of the people’s liberation army run by the brutish thug, ‘colonel’ Charles Taylor of Liberia, in sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, the modus operandi is remarkably the same. The name and style of the ‘Maoist’ child army in Jharkhand is the ‘child liberation army.’

The children are plied with money and consumables, and then told of the ‘spirit of adventure’ that is associated with wielding automatic rifles, sten guns, pistols, and sharp, cutting weapons. Similar to the African phenomenon, the Indian ‘Maoists’ run training camps’ with residential facilities and recruitment is made from the families of the poorest of the poor of Jharkhand.

We learn that two such ‘camps’ have been located in the jangal mahal of Dhanbad and Giridih. The children thus trained are thought by the police to have been involved in the murder of several Bengal CPI (M) workers in recent times. Further enquiries are going on.

EXTREMIST IN TRAP

BY SUHRID SANKAR CHATTOPADHYAY


Chhatradhar Mahato’s arrest is the first major breakthrough since Central forces were deployed in Lalgarh.

KOLKATA: It looked like a scene out of the cinema screen. The Chhatradhar Mahato, convener of the Maoist-backed People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA), who had been dodging arrest for over three months, was outfoxed on September 25 by police officers disguised as journalists, at Birkanr village near Lalgarh in West Bengal’s trouble-torn West Medinipur district. This was the first major breakthrough achieved by the police and the joint forces since the operations against the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) in Lalgarh began on June 18.

Chhatradhar came into prominence after an assassination attempt by Maoists on Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on November 2 last year at Kalaichand in West Medinipur district near the forested Lalgarh area. The PCPA’s violent agitation, which followed the arrests made in the area after that attempt, paved the way for the Maoists to strengthen their position. At their instigation, the tribal agitators refused to allow the police to enter Lalgarh, and this gave them enough time to entrench themselves in the region.

Beginning in November last year, the PCPA and the Maoists established a reign of terror not only in Lalgarh but beyond, systematically killing not just local leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or the CPI(M), but also ordinary CPI(M) supporters and those who resisted their diktat. They burnt down houses, ransacked CPI(M) offices, held kangaroo courts and carried out executions in the name of the area’s impoverished people.

As of September 30, as many as 62 people, mostly CPI(M) leaders and workers, had been murdered by the Maoists and the PCPA, 80 people were kidnapped and 160 injured, many of them critically, in the violence. “It is quite clear in the way one particular party is being targeted that the Maoists are using terror to create a political vacuum in the region, which they intend to fill,” a senior police source told Frontline.

Police trap

Chhatradhar Mahato, who organised violent rallies in the tribal belt in the past 11 months, was also the most familiar public face of the Maoists – he held press conferences and updated the media on the situation in Lalgarh.

Taking their cue from this, two police officers claiming to be journalists from a Singapore-based news channel established contact with Chhatradhar and a few local journalists who were in touch with him. They finally secured an appointment for an interview and were taken to his hideout in Birkanr, where they arrested him after the interview.

Though this has queered the pitch for the media, particularly the local press, who may henceforth be looked upon with suspicion by the Maoists, the State police insist that there was nothing wrong or illegal about the trap laid for Chhatradhar. The Jhargram court, where Chhatradhar was produced after his arrest, remanded him in police custody.

Manoj Kumar Verma, Superintendent of Police, West Medinipur, told Frontline: “For us this is a very important breakthrough. Chhatradhar Mahato was responsible for a lot of the law and order problem that exists in Lalgarh today. He was responsible for the entry of the Maoists into the region and for recruiting people; instead of books he gave guns in the hands of children. He also ordered killings and oversaw executions in the so-called jana adalats [people’s courts conducted by Maoists].”

There are 22 criminal cases pending against Chhatradhar in which he is the main accused, including charges under Sections 16, 18, 30, 38 and 39 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), 1967, for his links with a terrorist organisation.

More cases are likely to be added to the pending ones as, according to Verma, a large number of people who have been arrested recently have named Chhatradhar as the person who gave orders for various crimes. The Government of India decided on June 22, 2009, to include the CPI (Maoist) in the schedule of organisations banned under the UAPA.

Soon after Chhatradhar’s arrest, Maoists called a 24-hour countrywide bandh on October 3, and CPI (Maoist) polit bureau member Koteswar Rao (alias Kishenji) reportedly warned of “dire consequences” if Chhatradhar was not “unconditionally released”. The PCPA announced a 48-hour bandh on September 30-October 1 in the Jangalmahal.

Senior PCPA leader Asit Mahato, who has taken charge of the outfit’s activities in the Lalgarh area after Chhatradhar’s arrest, told Frontline: “The intensity of our agitation has doubled. We wanted to conduct a peaceful agitation of the oppressed people in the region, but the way the administration and the combined forces are behaving we are left with no other option except a bloody confrontation. It is the people of the region who feel this way. We are also thinking of an indefinite strike in Jangalmahal at some point.”

As the news of the arrest spread, miscreants set off a landmine in Kantpahari, a few kilometres from Lalgarh. Four of the six people arrested in connection with the incident are suspected Maoists. In Salboni, not far from Lalgarh, a mob vandalised the houses of three CPI(M) leaders.

On the evening of the same day, two police constables, Sisirkanti Nag and Siteswar Prasad Singh, were abducted, allegedly by Maoists, in Belpahari. Though they were set free the next day, the kidnappers were reported to have initially threatened to kill them if Chhatradhar was not released. Sporadic incidents of violent protests were also reported on September 28, and there have been a few instances of blocking roads by felling trees.

However, the district police chief does not expect too much trouble. “Because of the atrocities committed by Chhatradhar, the people of the region are no longer with him. In the last five days [September 25-30], there has not been much protest in the Jangalmahal, unlike in November last year,” Verma told Frontline.

Is Chhatradhar a Maoist?

In Kolkata, however, there have been some protests led by a group of eminent intellectuals, including writer and social activist Mahasweta Devi, poets Shankha Ghosh and Joy Goswami, theatre artistes Kaushik Sen and Bibhas Chakraborty, and others. They insist that Chhatradhar is a leader of a “people’s democratic movement”.

Earlier too, on June 21, three days after Central forces began their operations, a group of leading artists and intellectuals, including film director Aparna Sen and theatre personalities Shaoli Mitra and Kaushik Sen, held talks with Chhatradhar in the affected area, ignoring a government request and defying a ban under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Chhatradhar himself has never professed to be a Maoist. But the organisation he led, the PCPA, was certainly used as a vital tool by the Maoists to spread their influence in and around Lalgarh. In fact, Chhatradhar served as the political front for the Maoists.

“Chhatradhar has always claimed that he has nothing to do with Kishenji and the Maoists; then why are they calling a bandh and clamouring for his release? He is part and parcel of the Maoist atrocities. We do not differentiate between him and other Maoists, and we have a lot of evidence to prove that Chhatradhar is a Maoist,” Verma told Frontline.

Police claims

Bhupinder Singh, the Director-General of Police, West Bengal, while speaking to the media on September 30, revealed that Chhatradhar admitted, in police custody, to having “links” with the Maoists. He also confessed, the DGP said, that he had a life insurance policy worth Rs.1 crore, that he recently bought a house at Mayurbhanj in Orissa, and that he received funds regularly from Kolkata and outside.

Confessions made in police custody are, of course, inadmissible as evidence in a court of law, according to the Indian Evidence Act. The police, however, were guarded in their statements and said they were still verifying the details of the insurance policy and the accounts held by the PCPA in different banks.

Questions are being raised as to why Chhatradhar, known to have travelled to Kolkata on two occasions earlier this year, was not arrested before. State Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen explained that it was because Chhatradhar’s political activities had undergone an “evolution” since those visits to the city and that he progressed increasingly along the extremist path.

Trinamool stand

Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress seems to have undergone a metamorphosis as far as its stand on Chhatradhar is concerned. In February, Mamata Banerjee, not yet Railway Minister, shared a dais with Chhatradhar. Earlier, too, she had extended unequivocal support to his cause.
But she gradually distanced herself from the movement he represented, and after her significant success in the Lok Sabha elections, she has had practically nothing to do with Chhatradhar and the PCPA.

In July this year, when a team of senior Trinamool leaders, including the Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly Partha Chatterjee, Union Minister of State for Shipping Mukul Roy and Union Minister of State for Rural Development Sisir Adhikari, went to Lalgarh, they did not even meet Chhatradhar. Soon after Chhatradhar’s arrest, Mamata Banerjee held a press conference in Kolkata on September 30. Chhatradhar was not even mentioned.

Chhatradhar Mahato’s arrest assumes special political significance in the light of the recent announcement by Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram highlighting the urgent need for a nationwide counter-terrorist initiative against the Maoists before they became an uncontrollable force. Chhatradhar’s arrest may well be a precursor of things to come.

Two officers, claiming to be journalists, secured an appointment with Mahato.

FRONTLINE, Volume 26 - Issue 21 :: Oct. 10-23, 2009

Mahato has a life cover of Rs. 1 crore: Police

Kolkata: Chhatradhar Mahato, convenor of the Police Santrash Birodhi Janasadharaner Committee (PSBJC), has a life insurance cover of Rs. 1 crore. This was revealed during police interrogation following his arrest from the Lalgarh area on September 26.

West Bengal Director-General of Police Bhupinder Singh told journalists at the State Secretariat that interrogation had also revealed his links with the Maoists and with some people in Kolkata from whom he had received funding. He also has properties in Orissa including a house in Mayurbhanj district of the State. Mr. Singh said that the insurance cover was from private sector insurers, for which two instalments of premium were paid. He said the police had also come to know of at least five bank accounts, some of which were in PSBJC’s name. Persons from the city had also kept in touch with him, it was revealed, and until now a funding of Rs. 1.5 lakh had been unearthed.

The police recently arrested another PSBJC leader, Sukhsanti Baskey, who is the treasurer of the Committee. He is also being interrogated.

Chief Secretary Ashok Mohan Chakraborty told journalists separately that Chhatradhar Mahato had been booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act because of his Maoist links. CPI (M) leader and former parliamentarian Mohammed Salim said at the party secretariat that the premium for a policy of this order would be around Rs. 5 lakh a year. “From a Forest Department worker, he has reached a stage where he can make such investments!”

Mr. Salim alleged that money had flown freely to Chhatradhar Mahato for destroying democracy in the State and for ousting the lawful government from West Bengal.

Mahato had links with Maoists, says West Bengal

Marcus Dam

KOLKATA: The West Bengal administration, which has confirmed information of Chhatradhar Mahato, convener of the Maoist-backed Police Santrash Birodhi Janasadharaner Committee (PSBJC), having “connections” with the Maoists, does not see anything wrong in the manner of his arrest near Lalgarh in Paschim Medinipur district. Policemen posing as journalists arrested him on September 26.

“Yes,” was Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen’s reply to questions from journalists here on Tuesday whether the State administration was sure that Mr. Mahato had links with the Maoists. Mr. Mahato has been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.

Asked whether it was ethical on the part of policemen to pose as journalists to arrest the PSBJC leader, Mr. Sen said he was aware of such questions being raised in certain quarters. “But I am not one with them,” he said of those disapproving the way the arrest was made.

The International Federation of Journalists reportedly said in a statement that it was “deeply disturbed” by the implications of the operation. Some human rights activists have also expressed their resentment.

Responding to apprehensions of journalists that the operation could affect their functioning while reporting on events at Lalgarh, Mr. Sen said: “It might be difficult for a few days, after which all will be well and it will no longer be difficult to collect information… Telephonic interviews can always continue.”

THE HINDU,Wednesday, Sep 30, 2009

'Nothing wrong in cops disguised as journos making arrest'

Kolkata,September 29, 2009: There was nothing unethical about the arrest of Chhatradhar Mahato by the police disguised as journalists, a top West Bengal official said on Wednesday. "It was not unethical on the part of the police," Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen said in reply to a question if it was justified for the CID to arrest Mahato disguised as scribes.

Sen suggested that as a measure of caution journalists contacting Maoists should do so over phone for some days. "The situation will normalise after a few days." "The police have confirmed information that Mahato, who is chief of the so-called People's Committee against Police Atrocities, has direct links with Maoists," he said.

Mahato was arrested on September 26 for sedition and under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act at Birkar village near Lalgarh. Sen said, there were specific cases against Mahato, who has been leading an agitation against alleged police excesses in Lalgarh of West Midnapore district since last November. Asked why he was not arrested when he visited Kolkata at least twice a few months ago, Sen said "the situation did not warrant his arrest then, it has changed now." The manner of his arrest led to sharp protest from journalist bodies, some political parties and a section of intelligentsia.

Chhatradhar Mahato remanded to police custody till Oct 1

Chhatradhar Mahato, who was arrested yesterday near Lalgarh where he had been leading an agitation against alleged police excesses since last November, was on Sunday remanded to police custody by a special court till October 1. The Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate also remanded eight others, arrested yesterday, to police custody till that date. The eight include persons arrested along with Mahato and those held during planting of a landmine at Katapahari.

Mahato, an ally of the Maoists, was booked for three offences, including setting fire to Jhargram police outpost and torching of several other police stations. Mahato, chief of the so-called People's Committee against Police Atrocities, who had evaded police arrest ever since he started the anit-CPI(M), anti-police stir in Lalgarh in West Midnapore district, was caught at Birkara, near Lalgarh, while he was giving an interview to a journalist who was followed by policemen posing as TV journalists.

Mahato, who was kept in the Midnapore Police Lines after his arrest yesterday, was brought to Jhargram amid tight security this morning. Initially, he was taken to Jhargram police station from where he was taken to the court around noon. The police custody of a Maoist leader Pradyot Mahato, who was arrested six days ago, was today extended by a Midnapore court till October 1.

Meanwhile, two police constables, who were abducted by the rebels after Mahato's arrest yesterday, remained untraced till date, the police said. The constables -- Sisirkanti Nag and Siddheswar Prasad Singh -- were on leave and had boarded a Purulia-bound bus from Jhargram when armed men intercepted their vehicle near Tamajhuri village, eight km from Belpahari police station, last night, dragged them out and disappeared into the forest.

The PCPA today dug roads and obstructed a 30-km stretch between Midnapore and Dherua with tree logs in protest against Mahato's arrest. They also jammed roads leading to Lalgarh at several places with uprooted trees. The PCPA has called a two-day 'Bangla Bandh' starting on September 30 and the Maoists have called a 'Bharat bandh' on October 3 in protest against the arrest.

JANGAL MAHAL REJOICES CHHATRADHAR’S ARREST

Mamata Banerjee & Chatradhar Mahato at Lalgarh on 4th feb.2009

LALGARH,27th SEPTEMBER,2009: Far from witnessing, the ‘river of blood’ that the arrested criminal Chhatradhar Mahato had ‘promised’ would flow, in the event of his arrest, even bare sympathy for the goon was conspicuous by its absence. On the other hand, rural people of the forestry and beyond in the townships, already furious with the ‘Maoist’ incursions, have celebrated with joy the occasion, and the events that led up to it.

CONFIDENCE
CPI (M) units of Midnapore west in the red clay area tell us with confidence something they had hinted at during our last visit to the laterite zone. The inchoate violence unleashed by the ‘Maoists’ and the PCAPA had infuriated the masses enough to make the criminals shelterless even at the point of guns and dire threats.

The armed assaults of the marauders are met with mass resistance – it is a classic case of a few guns arraigned against a thousand staves and a stiff, challenging outlook of the villagers who had been cornered -- and had nowhere to go but forward to meet and defeat the ‘Maoist’ thrusts.

INTERNECINE STRIFES
Yet another cause that had made the PCAPA and its lackeys as well as the so-called urban band of ‘friends,’ here and there, leery of the counter-assault, has been the commencement of falling out among the thieves over the proverbial loaves and fishes.

The internecine strifes, the local units of the CPI (M) tell us, have probably resulted in ‘revolutionary’ bloodshed of the sectarian vein in recent times, and the inner fighting, armed fighting, among the Trinamuli cadres all over Midnapore are there for everyone to see, and draw the correct lessons. This has happened elsewhere too as witnessed on 27 September at Mayureswar in Birbhum where such an armed strife saw three Trinamuli hoodlums killed.

DEMORALISED
Reactionaries and sectarians are easily demoralised as history has proved repeatedly. The demeaning defeat of the student wings of the ‘Maoists,’ the BJP, and the Trinamulis at the Presidency College, the villagers tell us, has seen a drastic drop in the ‘import’ of propagandists from the metropolis into Midnapore west.

A good number of the Kolkata teaching community who, sadly, had come once out with all pistons firing in support of the ‘Maoist’ ‘cause’ are now talking in whispered, shady undertones about ‘sins’ being committed by the very people whom they had idolised in the big media.

NO SYMPATHY FOR THE KILLERS
Thus, when the cuffed Chhatradhar – his only complaint was of a queasy stomach – was taken from Lalgarh to the Jhargram court of law, a good six or seven kilometre of distance had to be covered, in an ancient police van, not one villager stood up in his favour. Twigs of trees scattered across the route that were easily motored over did signal symbolically the state-of-affairs of the ‘Maoist’ ‘braves’ and their cohorts.

The city-based die-hard members of the ‘civil society’ did bring out a small procession far away in Kolkata, but it was, as we said, a tiny band of downcast marchers, and the TV channels were strangely devoid of the firebrand interviews and voice-overs the earlier period had seen in relation to such incidents.

Herewith we add a final good word. The two unarmed police constables whom the ‘Maoists’ had kidnapped in the wake of Chhatradhar’s arrest have been released the next day on 28 September in good health – and unconditionally.

BENGAL POLICE TAKES CHHATRADHAR MAHATO INTO CUSTODY

RESISTANCE TO MAOIST KILLINGS CONTINUE

LALGARH,26th SEPTEMBER,2009: The Patrika-group anointed, self-proclaimed, non-tribal ‘leader’ of the ‘second Santhal rebellion’ has been how Chhatradhar Mahato, named accused in 21 murder cases of CPI (M) workers over the past couple of years, accustomed to being referred to reverentially among the bourgeois political outfits, the big media -- and their patrons in and out of the country.

The media in particular had been much ‘critical’ for a long time now also about the ‘inability’ of the police to arrest Chhatradhar despite his continual appearance in the electronic media. As it turned out, it was a ‘media person,’ close enough to the criminal to have him act as one of the conduits between the ‘Maoists’ and the Trinamul Congress-SUCI combine over the past one year, who gave the renegade the surprise of his life by suddenly delving into a stylish side-bag, and there leapt out a service revolver. This was on one sunny afternoon in the jangal mahal on 26 September.

SURPRISED
Formally proclaiming his arrest loudly -- and there was no resistance on the surprised Chhatradhar’s part at all, especially as two other ‘journalists’ jumped on Chhatradhar, pistols at the ready, pinning his arms behind his back and a loud ‘click!’ was heard as the cuffs snapped into place – the police whisked him away to an unknowing destination, with the remaining eager-beaver journos, after all, it was a ‘media conference’ that the criminal had called with self-confidence deep into the jangal mahal at a village near Lalgarh, and all of them faithful to the ‘anti-CPI (M) cause’ that the criminal represented with aplomb, showed a series of clean pair of heels for the fear of getting ‘involved,’ and so much for the arrested goon’s ‘popularity.’

REACTION
The chieftain of the Bengal opposition preferred to be mum to the arrest, as were the senior citizens of the Pradesh Congress-- and the ‘civil society’ was of differing views with at least one member of that motley anti-CPI (M) crowd calling Chhatradhar a ‘member of the CPI (M).’ Panic causes such ridiculous lies to pour out of those in the throes political isolation. The reaction of another ‘civil stalwart’ was even more interesting. She ‘grieved’ for Chhatradhar and said with a sob that the ‘Santhal rebellion’ has ‘just lost momentum.’

RECAP OF EVENTS
Herewith we give a brief recap of the rise, rise, and then fall with a bloomer of a thud, of the criminal Chhatradhar. In November of 2008, the ‘Maoists’ exploded a landmine at Bhadutala in Purulia near the motorcade of Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. In the wake of the unsuccessful attack, the ‘Maoists’ formed a convenient ‘front’ with Trinamuli goons Chhatradhar and his brother Sasadhar as the respectively overt and covert heads of a ‘People’s Committee and Against Police Atrocities’ or PCAPA.

RAISING HELL
The PCAPA lost little or no time in raising hell in the jangal mahal -- and it funded and armed ‘Moist’ killers to kidnap, torture, as well as kill and maim CPI (M) workers systematically. Sasadhar meanwhile had been inducted directly into the ranks of the ‘Maoist’ killers and given the name of ‘Vikash.’ Both this goon and one other hoodlum who called himself ‘Kishanji’ regularly briefed the electronic and print media at ‘unknown’ places in the jangal mahal, cowardly backs to the camera, faces covered, over the past one year.

INFILTRATING THE RANKS OF CRIMINALS
What these murderous neo-fascists did not take note of the fact was that three young ‘journalists’ had joined the throng of those media-persons who have been in great love and affection with the anti-CPI (M) wrong-doings of both the PCAPA and its motherlode, the ‘Maoists.’

All three were in fact young detectives of the Bengal police. Nothing and nobody would and could give them away, such was their professional appearance and behaviour, and all three carried impeccable media credentials. They often ‘stringered’ for the bourgeois media and they organised phone-in programmes, on a fair regular basis, on behalf of the ‘Maoist’ killers and the criminal Chhatradhar.

A worrying factor
There was one worrying factor though in the entire episode. Just before the police trio sprang into action, a call was received on one of the three sophisticated cell phones the criminal Chhatradhar carries. On receiving the call, Chhatradhar suddenly ‘ended’ the ‘media conference’ and whispered that ‘I have news of the police coming in.’ He was about to make good his escape deep into Jharkhand just across the very porous border when he was taken into custody. Is another ‘sleeper cell’ of the ‘Maoists’/PCAPA active yet in certain quarters?

MASS RESISTANCE WIDENS AND DEEPENS
In between, the example of Enayetpur has emboldened the villagers in the red clay zones to come forth with stiff resistance to the ‘Maoist’ and the Trinamuli predators. We receive news quite regularly over the past week of the attackers retreating in the face of mass resistance. Raat pahara or night watches have been set up. The villagers count on increasing numbers in their ranks of resistance just as the dwindling popular support – whatever little there had been of it – of the ‘Maoists’ and Trinamulis make them depend more and more on arms.

This is classical case of extreme alienation of the people, and one that reminds us gray-haired lot of the fate the ‘Naxalite’ movements in the Midnapore locales of Debra and Gopiballavpore, the so-called ‘liberated zones’ of the CPI (M-L) in the 1970s. Will these goons never learn a single lesson from history-- and are condemned to repeat all the errors of commission of the past in every exaggerated form!

THREE CPI (M) WORKERS KILLED
This, however, is not to underestimate the cruelty of the record of ‘accomplishment’ of the ‘Maoists.’ Only a couple of days earlier to the criminal Chhatradhar’s arrest, two CPI (M) workers were brutally done to death in the jangal mahal at the hands of the ‘Maoist’-Trinamuli murder conglomerate. They were comrades Nemai Bishui and Samir Singha Mahapatra of Goaltore in Midnapore. We record that from the time the ‘joint forces’ started ‘ops’ in the jangal mahal, 60 CPI (M) workers have been brutally killed, and several dozens are yet missing and this includes quite a few police personnel.

In a related development, far away deep in south 24 Parganas, at Pathar Pratima, Trinamuli goons shot and killed a CPI (M) worker, comrade Rafiq Mollah. This fourth time attack on comrade Rafique proved fatal. Biman Basu, Bengal CPI (M) secretary has condemned the killings.