Launch Solidarity Campaign with West Bengal

Press Statement on June 20, 2009

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) now in session at New Delhi has issued the following statement:

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) condemns in the strongest possible terms, the violence and terror unleashed against CPI(M) cadre, sympathizers and supporters in different areas of Bengal. Since March this year 53 comrades have been mercilessly butchered. In Lalgarh area of West Midnapore district eight CPI(M) members and workers have been brutally killed and houses and offices burnt. Many of these comrades belong to poor peasant, agricultural labour or worker families, from minorities and oppressed castes. Two members of the Forward Bloc, five villagers, three electoral officers and four police personnel have also been killed.

Utilizing the electoral setback of the CPI(M), armed gangs led in the main, by the Trinamool Congress have burnt and vandalized houses of party comrades and party offices, and like in Khejuri and other parts of East Midnapur, forcibly driven out hundreds of sympathizers and members from their homes unleashing a reign of terror. In Burdwan district, a veteran district committee leader and Chairman of the Electricity Standing Committee of the Zilla Parishad, Falguni Mukherjee, was shot dead at point blank range. The extent of the brutality can be seen in the incident in Khejuri when an agricultural worker sympathizer of the Party Pabitra Das was brutally beaten to death. These gangs have dug up areas in the district refusing entry to the police to catch the criminal murderers. In some areas like Murshidabad, a section of the Congress is also involved in the attacks.

In Lalgarh the Maoist gangs with the direct and indirect backing of the TMC have created a zone of terror against all CPI(M) members and supporters. It is noted that the Maoist leaders in the area have openly spoken about their contacts and help to the Trinamool led alliance in all the developments in Nandigram.

In one terrible instance in Lalgarh the body of a comrade was kept in the open for three days and his family was not allowed to cremate it. The Central Committee supports the efforts made by the Left front Government in West Bengal to use both political and administrative measures to free the area from Maoist gangs, to ensure the rule of law, while taking all steps to reestablish links with the poor tribals living in the area.

There is no doubt that this attack against the CPI(M) and its workers and sympathizers is part of a wider gameplan by powerful vested interests to weaken and destroy the Party in its main base of Bengal. At the same time, these fascistic type of attacks on the CPI(M) are also an attack on the minimum norms of democracy and must be a matter of concern to all democratic minded citizens.

The Party is proud of its courageous comrades in Bengal. The Central Committee pays its deep homage to its martyrs and all those killed. The Central Committee calls upon its units all over the country to launch a powerful campaign in solidarity with comrades in West Bengal and against the politics of terror unleashed by the Trinamool led alliance as well as against the Maoist gangs. It appeals also to all democratic minded citizens across the country to raise their voices against such terror based politics against the CPI(M) and Left parties.