Welfare warts in Bengal

A survey conducted by the Bengal government has brought to light several loopholes in the development programmes undertaken for Jungle Mahal.....

The report has mentioned that in a significant number of villages, wells are the only source of drinking water. The survey team had visited 35 Jungle Mahal villages and found that only 23 had tubewells.


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Welfare warts in Bengal

Isolate ‘Maoists’ Politically for Enduring Peace in Jangal Mahal

By Nilotpal Basu

ULTIMATELY, the truth has come out. Not that it was not known;  but now that it has come straight from the, so to say, horse’s mouth;  the chief minister of West Bengal and the Trinamool Congress supremo has eventually lashed out at the ‘Maoists’ for their heinous crime of engineering the Ganeshwari Express tragedy  which took the toll of 148 innocent lives. Contrary to what she has been claiming all this while that the CPI(M) and the Left was responsible for the tragedy to defame her and the Railway ministry – she has ultimately conceded that it was clearly the handiwork of the ‘Maoists’. 

What is the provocation for this belated ‘discovery’? Two activists of the Trinamool Congress had been gunned down by a ‘Maoist’ squad in a hamlet on the foothills of Ajodhya in Purulia district – an integral part of the jangal mahal area in West Bengal which continues to remain infested by ‘Maoist’ activity. There is no doubt that these were murders most vile and all right thinking people would condemn these with all the strength that one can muster.  The bodies of these hapless victims were brought to Kolkata and in front of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi – the `apostle of peace’ – that the chief minister blurted out her ‘pearls of wisdom’.     

The travails of the TMC and its maverick supremo are not only bizarre as one would think. It is at the same time extremely sinister. The growth of the ‘Maoists’ – obviously, not in terms of popular support but its depredations and mindless violence in the districts adjoining the Jharkhand and Orissa borders – was quite strange. Any avid reading of the history of Left adventurism in the country makes one to come to an interesting conclusion. While Naxalbari was the cradle of the Left adventurist movement in the country and the CPI(M) and  the Left suffered most due to its violence in the late sixties and early seventies, the movement completely petered out, particularly after the Left Front assumed office in West Bengal in 1977.  The agrarian reforms and the protection and consolidation of the democratic rights of the working people completely isolated the Naxalites in the state.  The resumption of their activities in early parts of the first decade of the new century started as armed incursions from Jharkhand initially and later on from Orissa. The thickly forested jungles on the borders of these states provided the natural cover, as well as, the strategic base that the ‘Maoists’ needed to move on to West Bengal. 

The Left had from the very beginning, maintained that the ‘Maoist’ movement cannot be treated merely as a challenge to law and order.  Their involvement in these forest fringe areas was not because of their compassion for the poor and the tribals who suffered from locational disadvantage and consequent comparative lack of development.  Despite this, the agrarian reforms and other benefits of decentralisation had expanded social sector development.  It is because of this, the Left had always been politically strong in these areas.  Premised on these experiences, the Left, therefore, argued for facing the challenge of ‘Maoist’ violence through a three pronged response; first, on the question of targeted socio-economic development, secondly on the question of political-ideological offensive to isolate them from the people- and finally, based on these two, to initiate administrative actions of the security forces that would finally be successful in containing the violence.

As opposed to this, the central government had always pitched for all out administrative confrontation.  The home minister, P Chidambaram, the fountainhead of such an exclusively confrontationist approach even mooted the idea of deploying the military and the air force to snuff out the ‘Maoists’. 

However, the maverick TMC supremo was totally opposed to the very idea of taking on the ‘Maoists’.  Because she understood that in order to undermine and weaken the Left in these areas which have traditionally been the bastion of the Left, the ‘Maoists’ could prove to be her hatchet men.  The ‘Maoists’ – the opportunists that they are – found these to be extremely convenient.  Their complete ideological bankruptcy and penchant for military strategy created conditions for the coming together of these two forces. West Bengal’s recent history – from the ‘Maoists’ involvement in the Nandigram agitation and the present West Bengal chief minister’s open dalliance with the ‘Maoists’ in Lalgarh - the alliance was eventually made official.  The media savvy ‘Maoist’ Polit Bureau member Kishanji announced from behind his masked face that the ‘Maoists’ would love to see the TMC supremo as the next chief minister of West Bengal in an interview to Ananda Bazar Patrika before elections. 

This was music to her ears.  This made her to claim that there are no ‘Maoists’ in West Bengal.  And, she was not even acknowledging the killings of hundreds of CPI(M) and Left activists and leaders who were being snuffed out by these ‘Maoist’ marauders.  And, she did everything possible to politically delegitimise the operation of the state and central joint security forces to protect the life and livelihood of innocent citizens who were at the receiving end of the mindless ‘Maoist’ violence. 

The complicity was so complete that while the ‘Maoists’ had hijacked a train, the Rajdhani Express, the Railways under her charge did not even mention the ‘Maoist’ involvement in the complaint that the department filed.  And, finally, came the shocking allegation in the wake of the Gyaneshwari tragedy. Not only did she claim that these gruesome deaths of the Ganeshwari passengers were not the result of ‘Maoist’ depredation but actually they have been done by the CPI(M) and the Left to discredit the Railway Ministry! The intellectuals – the `civil society’ her close band of trumpeters for `political change’ in fact went a step further.  They actually called a press conference on the eve of a crucial municipal election in Kolkata and directly charged the CPI(M) of engineering the tragedy.  These intellectuals – of whom some are now even part of the cabinet of the present West Bengal government – justified their position by claiming that ‘Maoists’ did not explicitly take the responsibility for the incident. 

Now that the TMC supremo has assumed the chief minister’s office, she has to reconcile with the harsh cold reality. She thought that the zeal with which the ‘Maoists’ had worked overtime to see her in the office that she holds today would continue to do so even after the objective has been secured.  But, as we know, the ‘Maoists’ show extreme opportunism in siding with this or that bourgeois political party for carrying on with violent methods to physically eliminate all political opposition.  The ‘Maoists’ clearly had an agenda that they would use the TMC to ensure the physical elimination of the CPI(M) and the Left  to facilitate their own physical stranglehold over a region which had remained a bastion of the Left.

CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST

But, now the chickens have come home to roost.  The latest dramatic turn of events saw the felling of that very ‘Maoist’ leader who once wanted to anoint the TMC supremo as the incumbent chief minister of West Bengal.  This is the real irony.  The operation of the joint security forces which was held back for almost five months had to be ultimately allowed since the ‘Maoists’ were not sparing the TMC functionaries once they had been able to regroup with the relief that the new government had provided.  The process of the so-called negotiations which was bound to fail because of the pan Indian nature of the ‘Maoist’ activity also further emboldened them. 

It is in this background that the gun battle ensured in the forests of Burisole which has by now become a household name – as the site which marked the elimination of Kishanji.  In a way, this was inevitable.  Far from being a revolutionary movement, which the ‘Maoists’ claim to lead, apparently he found himself thoroughly isolated and encircled – that is what the security forces had claimed. 

But strangely, neither the chief minister nor any of her top ranking officials from the police or the general administration had come out with any authentic version over the sequence of events which led to the elimination of Kishanji immediately after the announcement of the incident. More than anybody else, it is their supporters – particularly those sections of liberal persuasion – some of them even sympathetic to the ‘Maoist’ cause have come out quite sharply against the same government and the security forces for having done what they did. 

In doing this, they seem to have taken a leaf out of chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s book of records. She did exactly this in questioning the elimination of Azad – the spokesman of the ‘Maoists’. She had actually demanded enquiry into Azad’s `murder’ not only outside but also in the parliament itself. In fact, directed by the court, an inquiry is still going on about this incident.

Now that Kishanji has been eliminated, the same charges are being leveled.  It is being alleged that the security forces had him in custody and this amounts to a `cold blooded murder of a prisoner in custody’.  It is now for the state government to clarify the real course of development transparently.  Rule of law would require that of her government.

However, in a public meeting recently, the chief minister has claimed that the security forces had encircled Kishanji for three continuous days.  The forces had also made an announcement over a public address system that he would be allowed a safe way out . But according to her, he did not respond positively and fired back.  This is what led to the armed confrontation which saw her one time `well wisher’ dead.

SINISTER RELATIONSHIP

The convergence of purpose which brought the TMC and the ‘Maoists’ together to eliminate the Left – does no longer exist.  The functional alliance appears to have come unstuck.  And, therefore, this belated admission over Gyneshwari Express tragedy and this renewed restoration of the joint security forces’ operation leading to the elimination of Kishanji. 

But the tenuous exercise to try and balance the relationship between these two sinister forces had continued for the last few months since the new government in West Bengal had assumed office, now seems to be finally over.  The group of interlocutors who had been officially appointed by the state government to carry out the discussions with the ‘Maoists’ have finally thrown up their hands. And, in the statement issued recently expressing their inability to carry on the process, they have squarely blamed the state government for having killed Kishanji `in cold blood’.

The course of the sinister alliance has really come to complete its vicious circle.  Sadly, the TMC and some of their grassroot level activists who are also poor and vulnerable have also now come to suffer from the mindless violence of the ‘Maoists’. 

But the chief minister is not prepared to accept the reality. While she has lambasted the ‘Maoists’ and their liberal sympathisers who don the mantle of  the human rights organisations for failing to condemn the death and killings of hapless victims of the mindless ‘Maoist’ violence – even going to the extent of pointing out that a large number of activists of the Left had  suffered – she failed to concede that she herself had shown similar proclivities.

To compound her almost criminal negligence in shielding the ‘Maoists’ – she is actually still maintaining that the CPI(M) and the ‘Maoists’ are in league.  This is not withstanding the fact that after the Lok Sabha elections alone almost 250 CPI(M) activists and leaders mostly poor and tribals laid down their lives in the course of taking on the political and ideological challenge of the ‘Maoists’.  But still there is time. The  threat that ‘Maoist’ violence poses to the life and livelihood of the most downtrodden sections of the society in the remotest jungles of West Bengal can only be repulsed by the joining of forces. The unity of all political parties who believe in the rule of law and securing life of the people must act together to isolate the ‘Maoists’.  It is the only enduring way to establish peace.   And, elimination of a single individual – however important he may be – cannot mark the end to the mindless violence which the ‘Maoists’ had been perpetrating.  The restoration of legitimate political activities of all political forces in the affected areas of jangal mahal area is the only rational course to achieve that objective.

People’s Democracy, December 04, 2011

'Mamata failed to deliver on promises to Maoists'

Last Updated: Sunday, October 16, 2011, 11:31 

Ashok Jiban, Jhargram: Spokesperson of the People's Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA), Ashok Jiban, has said that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has failed to deliver on the promises she made to the Maoists before the state elections.

While reacting to recent statements by Mamata Banerjee, Jiban said: "She (Banerjee) talked about peace during her visit here. We also want peace and for making the environment conducive for peace she will have to keep her promises and then the process of continuous discussions will bring back permanent peace here."

 

He also said that the Maoist prisoners arrested during the conflicts must be released as was promised earlier.

"First we want withdrawal of the security forces, then we want the unconditional release of all the prisoners and withdrawal of false cases. In the past, when the CPI(M) established a new government, they released prisoners without any condition. Uttar Pradesh government also released prisoners on her birthday, recently the Orissa government also released prisoners and the military junta government of Myanmar controlled by Army also released 6300 prisoners. They all didn't establish their respective governments with any promises but the Chief Minister of West Bengal made these promises before the elections," he added.

Jiban also said that Banerjee's call to the Maoists to give up arms is a farce as there are other gangs controlled by political parties, which need to be disbanded.

"The Chief Minister said that the rebels have given up arms. But the people don't have any arms. It is in the hands of the CPI(M)'s Harmad. It is in the TMC's (Trinamool Congress) Bhairab Bahini's hands. Arms are also in the Maoist's hands, but Maoists are not like the Harmad and Bhairab gangs because they have their own ideals. They should not be compared with these gangs under any circumstances. But these gangs attack villages regularly so their arms must be seized first," he asserted.

ANI

JANGAL MAHAL REJOICES UNDER THE RED FLAG

By B Prasant

 

KOLKATA, 2nd Sept. 2010 (INN): For some time now, like about three months, the left sectarians, heinous criminals who go under the costume of their brand of so-called ‘Maoism,’ have been forced on the backfoot by the mass of the people. The résistance, much absurdly reflected in an expectedly bitter corporate media, comprises, as we were very recent witness to the mass movements in Midnapore west, and indeed elsewhere in the red clay rural belt, three distinct phases.

BLOOD LETTING

First, in places like Pidakata and Dharampur, the left sectarians and their somewhat loosely weaved, amorphous, and, Trinamul-financed ‘front’ of armed goons called the PCAPA (‘people’s committee against police atrocities’ is the full nomenclature), are initially with politeness, and then with vigour asked by the rural people, who have had enough of the blood-letting of the poor by the villains, to let them alone.

Second where this is heeded, rare, the mass of the people put up the Red Flag, organise rallies, house-to-house campaign on the truth behind the ‘Maoist’ phenomenon, and then go about the good and great business of bringing rural tranquillity back in place.

In due course, democratic activities resume, shops and stalls open, the tea stall is a vital sign of normalcy, the smoking chullah sending out the signals of the right kind as a massage of comfort to the early morning toilers as they trudge across unploughed fields, lying barren both from disuse and from the pitiless sun pouring heat from the frighteningly, unseasonably, bright blue above. Life resumes its hum and rhythm.

MAOIST RANKS CRUMBLE

Third, and this is becoming a sickening repetition ad nauseum now more than ever, there are pockets that are situated deep into the dark grey-green foliage of whatever forestry is left behind by the electric chain-saw wielding illegal fellers of trees, ‘Maoists’ featuring prominent among their ranks, we had better note right here and now, in pockets, described by the terrorists and enemies of the people as ‘terrain,’ there are splinter groups of the ‘Maoists,’ and the splintering has been fashioned both vertically and horizontally, a classical example per se of the crumbling of those who mistake crime for rebelliousness, with everyone ‘inside,’ suspecting everyone else, there are ‘desperadoes’ who would not heed the writing on the wall.

Here what the rural masses do is an interesting example of the people’s idea of résistance -- in words and deeds. And, no, we are not talking of counter-violence and/or listening, and reacting to the tired uncredenced, hesitant drumbeats that are heard in the corporate media about ‘armed camps,’ (the Union Home minister would even go so far as to mention the bourgeois-damned ‘c’ word, when he talked about ‘cadres,’ but would not confront the truth).

BAITING VIOLENCE

 

The rightist supremo, ruthless, hateful, and a violence-baiter, who has by now quite suborned the pathetically keen political arm-weaving of a drowning unit called the Pradesh Congress, may allow the corporate media to run away with lies and half-truths that the reactionaries always adhere to, and the left deviationists thrive on, but the facts speak for themselves. Let us here and now pose a question that begs for an answer, and it is this: ‘how many ‘Maoists’, and for the record armed Trinamulis have been killed, now and ever in the past, except in police actions? Would the proponents of the much-vaunted armed camps theory that they shamelessly go sickeningly ga-ga over, kindly stand up and be counted, even if once? In the circumstances, we confess they had better pay heed to what we saw, and what made us joyous and proud.

The place of occurrence is Dharampur, some miles away into the deep of the jangal mahal. The date is 2 September 2010. The time is day break and into the morning hours of sun and sweat. Readers will no doubt recall what has been reported in these columns in the arid summer of 2009. It was the 15th day of June. For close to three days, the left deviationists surrounded and cut off Dharampur from the rest of the forest sub-division.

THE NIGHTS OF LONG KNIVES

Then the killing of the helpless and the innocent started. Initially the Trinamul-identified leading cadres of the CPI (M) were beaten up, hacked away with sharp weapons and then left mangled, bleeding heaps, and in the intensity of agony to die the most horrible death imaginable. The peasants were next. Anybody with links, even the remotest of links to the CPI (M) Kisan Sabha, the SFI, and the DYFI, and the AIDWA were singled out and beaten up – some were to succumb to their injuries for days afterwards, as the cries of help for medical attention went unheeded.

 

Women were systematically raped and left disfigured, some, unable to withstand the agony, mental and physical, were later to take their own lives. The houses were looted and put to the torch. In the year that followed, close to 270 CPI (M) leaders and cadres were murdered in the contiguous areas of the jangal mahal around Dharampur and Lalgarh, in particular. Villages after villages of the area were made bereft of activities, even of the most basic kind. Kisans left their home-and-hearth-- and took shelter in the district wherever they could, the helpless and innocent fugitive, and the refugee was born again.

CORPORATE MEDIA AND ITS WOES

Would the corporate media report a line of this, oh, no, and who ran armed camps then, friends, and at under whose patronage-- could this be explained by those same members of the media corps who today doth protest mightily and too much, too soon, about they having been ‘attacked,’ during their recent approach into Pidakata, not far away from Dharampur?

May we venture an educated guess (that may very be the truth as well, however unpleasant it may seem in some quarters) for their recent brand of protestations? They, quite frankly, do miss their fond linkages with the now-fled ‘Maoists.’ They fly into a rage when they see the Red Flag aflutter from fearfully large number of hutments and establishments, and not just in Dharampur, for the welcome scene is repeated along large tracts of the jangal mahal now where the people have torn apart the veil of fear-- and have spoken, loud and clear. Those that are the soil of the earth, those that were driven away from the red clay zone, have now returned. Life is tough. The tea stall chullah, however, smokes again, the aroma of tae and of oven-fresh succulence of soft bread loaves spread, the bright Red Flag alert and a-flutter from the shambled top of what is now effectively a shanty, among many shanties that are in a serious need of a clean up, the housewives nod and agree. Life has picked up its age-old cycle of normalcy in the better part of the forest areas of Midnapore west.

Mamata deployed RPF for Lalgarh rally, kept Centre, state in dark

New Delhi, 1st Sept. 2010 : When it came to security for her August 9 rally in Lalgarh in West Bengal, Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee, in addition to roping in trusted retired IPS officers, ordered the deployment of the Railways Protection Force (RPF) at the venue.

The RPF deployment was made without keeping the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and West Bengal Police in the loop and this has generated a lot of heat.

The RPF deployment, official sources told The Indian Express, was a violation of standard operating procedures governing the security of VIPs like Union Ministers. “It was completely against the directives of the Blue Book which lays down rules on how security should be provided to VIPs. The RPF presence at the rally was unauthorised,” the sources said.

Two RPF companies (around 200 personnel) were deployed for the Lalgarh rally. Senior RPF officials from the Eastern and the South Eastern Railways were also present there. The RPF personnel were present in the motorcade, at the ground where the rally took place and provided cover to the dais from where Banerjee spoke.

“Being a Central paramilitary force, the Railways Ministry required MHA clearance before deploying RPF in Lalgarh. No such permission was taken. The RPF should have coordinated with the state police since the latter was primarily responsible for Banerjee’s security. That too was not done, leading to a situation where the local police got sidelined, opening gaps in overall security,” sources said.

Last year, Banerjee declined to spare RPF personnel for election duties in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. It was only after a rap from the MHA that Rail Bhavan allowed the deployment of the force. On another occasion, Banerjee declined to clear a list of RPF officials nominated for a FBI-sponsored 12-day training programme on railway security in the United States because no official from home state West Bengal was on the list.

Desperate ‘Maoists’ Killing Spree Continues

By B Prasant

AS the people’s resistance grows in the western districts of Bengal, the ‘Maoists’ have started to go in for generalised armed attack on the rural population. They have also migrated to the northern hinterland of metropolitan zone in splinter groups of hardened, professional killers-- especially in the Nadia-Murshidabad areas in what can be called ‘central’ Bengal.

The points of resistance have been the Midnapore west Sadar block as well as Salboni, and Goaltore where we found how the ‘Maoists’ were conspicuous by their absence. The taking into custody, albeit belatedly, of some of the killers by the central forces, too has helped. Yet, the attacks on the innocents continue. So do the kidnappings and ransom-demands.

In the face of the armed assaults, people have come out in streams of thousands upon thousands in the jangal mahal over the past week, and it was a heart-warming sight for us to be witness to the resoluteness of the marchers in zones and localities where the Trinamuli-backed ‘left’ ultras had held sway even a couple of months back.

Slogans rose ragingly as the serpentine line of kisans and khet mazdoors traversed across the muddy rice paddies, strode across the sal and mahua forestry, and occasionally walked along the metalled roads where the traffic willingly and perhaps with a sigh of relief gave way to the fluttering Red Flag. This was normalcy. This was welcomed.

The talk about ‘restoration’ of democracy in Bengal is out of line with reality. What has happened has been that democracy, nurtured carefully by the Communist Party and the Left parties, has been subjected to ruthless and continuous assaults and the corporate media has egged the attackers on.

In Jhargram, the Bengal CPI(M) mourns the loss of lives at the hands of the Trinamuli-‘Maoist’ combination of two CPI(M) workers, Comrades Ganesh Murmu and Srimanta Tudu in Midnapore west and also of the SFI worker Comrade Phulchand Mahato. The Bengal CPI(M) grieves for the killing of two poor khet mazdoors who were CPI (M) workers in Naoda in Murshidabad, Comrades Saidul Sheikh and Mohar Ali Sheikh. It is worrying that no trace could yet be found of the kidnapped CPI(M) worker and a para-teacher of Jhargram rural belt, Ajit Giri.

CHIDAMBARAM COMES A-VISITING BUT SKIPS MANGOLKOTE

KOLKATA: Besides West Bengal, the joint action force is operating in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, and Bihar to oust the ‘Maoist’ from this region.

To inspect this operation, readers will not fail to note, Chidambaram has chosen Lalgarh in Bengal as his place of visitation In relation to this it is to be noted that the now-hot-now-cold ‘ally’ of the central government the Trinamul Congress has been persistently condemning the role of the joint action forces’ drives.

On 3 April in Delhi, Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata had a half-an hour meeting with Chidambaram. According to the central home ministry, Lalgarh has been chosen for the visit mainly for ‘security-related’ [?] reasons.

It is important to note that Andhra Pradesh is greatly affected by the ‘Maoist’ predicament. Nevertheless, none from the central home ministry much less than the home minister, has visited that state. On Thursday the home ministry claimed, much to Didi’s chagrin, to have been a ‘success’ in bringing down ‘Maoist’ activities under control, especially at Lalgarh thanks to the ops of the joint action force.

From 18 June of last year onwards, in the western part of Bengal, the joint action force has begun its work. Before this operation in Bengal, the joint force has been in operation in Chattisgarh. Later on, the joint action force has been in operation in Orissa and Jharkhand against the ‘Maoist’ brutality. No visits from the home ministry were warranted in these instances.

We recall how, to combat the ‘Maoist’ force, there had been a meeting organized by the central home ministry with the chief ministers of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa and Bihar. The meeting was conducted in absence of the chief ministers of Bihar and Jharkhand. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee the chief minister of Bengal and the chief minister of Orissa Navin Pattanayak attended the meeting among others.

We note here how the state Left Front government came to know about this ‘surprise’ visit of the home minister at the last possible moment. The present call of Chidambaram is merely for political reasons and this is the view of the mass of the people of Bengal and beyond. Through this visit, the Pradesh Congress wants to gain electoral mileage before the next and upcoming civic election.

Nonetheless it is interesting that despite tall promises and much drumming up of the political kind by the rainbow opposition here in Bengal, Chidambaram has nay’ed visits to those villages of Mangolkote in Burdwan where Trinamulis and Congressites have jointly carried on bloody and murderous assaults on both the CPI (M) leadership and the CPI (M) workers. (B PRASANT)

'MAOISTS’ RELENT UNDER PEOPLE POWER

Headmaster released at a village near Lalgarh

KOLKATA(INN): The writing on the wall has been there for some time of late. The noxious game of the left sectarians of kidnapping villagers and minor officials and the calling for what these thugs term an 'exchange of prisoners,' has finally come to deserving and shamed halt.

The headmaster Ranjit Duley was kidnapped last week from Sarenga in Bankura. The demand for exchange of six hardened killers with Duley could be turned down by the police solely because of the free-ranging courage as opposed to any mental frame of siege of the rural masses of the district.

Rather than let free the six criminals, the police went ahead and took into custody for- interrogation- 37 more 'Maoists' who had been cosy, careless, drunk and were entrapped. What would Koteswara Rao aka Kishanji would say to all this. Ranjit Duley has returned home. We recall how the ‘Maoist’ criminals had gunned down his brother Bishnu a year back

'Vikash' the other piece of garrulousness of the criminals has not been 'on air' for three weeks now, we note. Coming back to the metropolis, we note from Biman Basu, chairman Left Front and Bengal CPI (M) secretary that the LF would begin talks with the Workers’ Party whose secretary has expressed a desire to join the Left Front in times when ‘fresh attacks are raining down on the Communists and the Left’ from imperialism and divisive forces. (B PRASANT)

DEVELOPMENT GOES ON UNABATED IN JANGAL MAHAL

‘MAOIST’ VIOLENCE NOTWITHSTANDING

When the Home Minister came to Kolkata to meet the chief ministers of Bengal, Orissa, and Jharkhand over the modus operandi to “tackle ‘Maoist’ violence,” Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee handed over to him a slim document that summed up the continuity of developmental work going on relentlessly, with the welfare of the poor firmly in sight, in the violence-affected jangal mahal.

We can briefly summarise the basic premises of the six page document, thus.

1. The expenditure of allocated amount of REGA for Midnapore west has increased by nearly 98% from 2008 to 2009 with an additional creation of close to 85% of man-days

2. In Purulia the concomitant figures are respectively close to 147%, and 180%

3. In Bankura by the same criteria, the figures that are arrived at are 80% and 94%

4. There has been a doubling or more of expenditure in the supply of potable water with other allocations for development of the supply-related infrastructure in these districts

5. The laal maati or red clay area has seen in this period creation of nearly 800 km of pucca and metalled road with 275 km about to be completed as an additional component.

6. Until December of last year, more than 30 thousand of the poor have been in receipt of shelter under the Awas Yojana

7. 50 thousand ST elderly have received pension as members of the BPL

8. Nearly 14 thousand forest patta have been distributed

9. The total amount of land under pattadari thus reaches 5300 acres

10. The three red clay districts witness the successful running of 74 ICDS projects afresh plus 18 thousand Anganwadi Kendras

The document clearly shows how the pro-poor developmental efforts could be carries on relentlessly by the popular Bengal Left Front government despite obstacles of every kind having been thrown on the path of progress, and the bourgeois media have been at their best (worst?) trying spread canards about how the red clay zones remain in the backwater of development(INN).

War on Maoism by other means

Marcus Dam

KOLKATA: A team of officials will be visiting the Lalgarh area of West Bengal’s Paschim Medinipur district on Tuesday as part of the State government’s plans to expedite development work in the region. Joint security operations by paramilitary forces and the State police are under way in the region to flush out Maoists and activists of the Police Santrash Birodhi Janasadharaner Committee.

The State government has been planning for greater development of the region that has been severely affected by months of strife in the wake of left-wing extremism. The joint operations by security forces against the Maoists had begun on June 18.

The delegation will visit the area and discuss with the authorities how to take the development process forward and restore the confidence of the people in the local administration, Chief Secretary Ashok Mohan Chakraborty said here on Monday. Officials had earlier visited Lalgarh and held talks with district authorities on development initiatives that included rural electrification, digging of tube-wells and improving of health care facilities.

The delegation will, among other things, take stock of the progress made on these initiatives, it is learnt. The government is trying to put in place development plans not just for the Lalgarh area but the entire tribal belt in the south-west region spanning parts of adjoining Bankura and Purulia districts.

Mr. Chakraborty, accompanied by Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen and the Director-General of Police Bhupinder Singh will be visiting the area on October 27 to discuss administrative and security issues with officials.

They will review the progress of the operations against the Maoists, some of whom continue to be in hide-outs in the forest even though areas in Lalgarh that had remained out of bounds to the police and the civil authorities since November 2008 had been reclaimed by the security forces. The future of the security operations were discussed by West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at meetings with the Prime Minister and the Home Minister in New Delhi earlier this month.

THE HINDU, KOLKATA, October 19, 2009

Foreign spies may have sneaked into Lalgarh

Caesar Mandal, TNN 17 October 2009, 11:00am IST

KOLKATA: Two English-speaking foreigners had sneaked into Maoist-dominated Lalgarh in April this year and stayed undetected for weeks after the security forces started their crackdown on June 18. Police and intelligence agencies have been thrown into a tizzy after this revelation.

The identities of these two foreigners have not yet been established, nor what they were doing there. The duo apparently changed locations repeatedly between Bengal and Jharkhand and went around asking villagers about the troubles in the area and whether they knew anything about Maoism. Officials here are worried about the possibility that they might be foreign intelligence agents.

What caught the police's attention first was two locally made toilet commodes discovered during a raid in Bahdodihi village near Ghatsila, Jharkhand, bordering West Midnapore and Purulia in Bengal. Police were immediately suspicious because local people do not use such things. They asked around if any outsiders were in the area. They were stunned to know that two gora sahibs' had been there since April. One of them called the other David'. They spoke in English and often talked to villagers with the help of an Indian interpreter.

Villagers of Patamda in Jharkhand told police that the foreigners regularly visited the local marketplace and even came to their homes, took pictures of the locality and talked to them about their poverty and Maoism. When students of local missionary schools asked the sahibs where they had come from, the duo said they had come to do some research work on behalf of a foreign agency.

Jharkhand Police found their traces in Jharkhand's Chakulia and Lalgarh in Bengal. When PCPA leader Chhatradhar Mahato was arrested from Lalgarh, police specifically asked him about the two foreigners. He apparently admitted knowing some foreigners were around, but claimed he had not met them. A lot of foreigners journalists and NGO workers had come to Lalgarh during the agitation, Mahato said.

Officers believe the mysterious duo entered Jangalmahal from the Jharkhand end, when police were busy preventing rights activists such as Medha Patkar and Gopal Menon from entering Lalgarh. Intelligence agencies indicate that these foreigners came in with the Maoists and had been working among the tribals for months before the Lalgarh operation.

The Bengal CID is sending a team to interrogate arrested Maoist leaders in Jharkhand to learn more about the foreigners and cross-check the information with what Mahato and arrested Maoist leaders have told them. According to police, Maoists have been getting funds from within the country and abroad including a Norway-based agency but the cops are yet to nail them.

CPI(Maoist) politburo member Kishanji, however, rubbished such claims and said that foreigners had never come to the organization during this phase. Police in two states, though, are sure about the presence of the sahibs' in Lalgarh and other Maoist-dominated areas.

Meanwhile, Police produced PCPA leader Chhatradhar Mahato before a Jhargram court for examining his handwriting. Mahato was asked for a specimen signature, but he refused to give one.

The prosecution, on October 1, had submitted a petition, showing some hand-written documents that were seized from Mahato's residence. It said that comparing it with the PCPA leader's handwriting was very essential, as police firmly believe that the documents were written by him.

Joint Operation Against Maoists to Continue in WB

New Delhi, Oct 12, 2009: The joint anti-Maoist operations by Central paramilitary forces and police in West Bengal will continue with the Centre deciding to keep 17 companies of its forces stationed in the state.

"My only demand was that the 17 companies (about 1,700 personnel) continue to remain stationed in the state and carry out the joint operations with the state police. The Home Minister (P Chidambaram) has accepted it," West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee told reporters here.

The decision came after Bhattacharjee met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today and Home Minister P Chidambaram and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee here yesterday. Bhattacharjee strongly recommended continuance of the joint operations in his state along with simultaneous action in Jharkhand, saying West Bengal Police would otherwise not be able to consolidate the gains made against Maoists in West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura.

"Without simultaneous operations in Jharkhand, it will be difficult for the police to hold on to the gains," he said, adding that the security forces would soon start operations in areas bordering Jharkhand, where most of the Maoist infrastructure, training camps and strongholds are located. Bhattacharjee's meeting came days after the prime minister said talks could be held with the Left extremists only if they lay down arms. "This has been my consistent position too," he said.

Did Kobad Ghandy visit Lalgarh?

Surbek Biswas,

Hindustan Times

Kolkata, October 14, 2009

Did Kobad Ghandy, the UK-educated politburo member of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), visit Lalgarh, the place in West Bengal that’s the hub of Naxalite disturbances? To get an answer, a team of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officials from the state is going to Delhi to interrogate the 63-year-old Maoist.

Lalgarh is located 160 km south-west of Kolkata.

The police sensed the possibility of Ghandy having a Lalgarh connection after they learnt from local people about “a very important person of the organisation” visiting the area.

According to the police, the Maoists used to hire a car for this “very important person”.

“The Maoists usually do not take the risk of hiring cars for members of their organisation. But they did it more than once in Lalgarh in March-April — before the Lok Sabha elections. This indicates that the visitor was neither familiar with the area, nor able to negotiate his way through forests,” a top official of the West Bengal police said.

“He was picked up from railway stations nearby like Salboni and Chandrakona Road. At that time many top leaders of CPI (Maoist) gathered in Lalgarh, taking advantage of there being no policemen,” he said.

“During interrogation by the Delhi police, Gandhy mentioned Lalgarh and gave some information about this tribal-dominated region. We cannot reveal these inputs now. We suspect that Gandhy had links with Kolkata,” the police officer said.

Ghandy was arrested in Delhi on September 20.

Though the Delhi police haven’t so far confirmed Gandhy’s visit to Lalgarh, they have sent some inputs about the place they obtained while interrogating him.

“Whether Gandhy visited Lalgarh or not isn’t a big issue. Even if he had, the visit wouldn’t have made much impact on the events there.

But from the way the movement was designed and engineered, it seemed that it received support from urban intellectuals, and that makes the involvement of ideologues like Ghandy likely,” a senior CID official told Hindustan Times.

Gandhy used to get support from urban intellectuals and organised foreign funding.

Immediately after his arrest in Delhi, Koteshwar Rao alias Kishanji, the 50-year-old Maoist leader in Lalgarh, demanded Ghandy’s release.

Before the joint forces of the Centre and the state started operations on June 18 in Lalgarh, the police could not enter the zone for about eight months.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/465222.aspx
© Copyright 2009 Hindustan Times

‘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.

‘MAOIST’ CONSPIRATORS ON THE BACKFOOT IN BENGAL

KOLKATA(INN): This is our preliminary view especially after a four-day-long motoring trip around the so-called ‘Maoist-infested’ areas of Jharkhand of Ranchi-Morabadi Hills-Jagannathpur-Netarhat. Whatever we had written earlier, we left Jharkhand with no doubt in our mind that it was from here, in Jharkhand that the entire loathsome activities of the left sectarians were conducted.

JHARKHAND SITUATION
On the situation in Jharkhand itself, we shall limit our bare observations, as a reporter of a Communist persuasion, to two points: the ‘Maoists’ have penetrated deep into the caste-and-sub-caste hierarchy of the societal structure there. Second, inefficacy of the often counter-productive and anti-people police action, especially lacking a focus of the proper counter-insurgency kind, has allowed the criminals, who enjoy overt support of the land barons of the higher castes, and have a sub-strata of shore up from among such caste groups as the lohars, the kurmis, and the musaharas, in particular – thanks to the oppressive nature of the authoritarian rule of the present régime in the state – and this is a state sans development of any visible sort, to use the hill regions as well as the plain lands of Jharkhand to launch murderous attacks on the Communist-led Left Front of neighbouring Bengal across a very porous border.

‘Maoist’ empathy for the criminal
The large number of hand-written -- in Hindi and English -- posters we saw along the route in the cities and the townships, across villages and around tree trunks near the more frequented dhabas, calling for a release of Chhatradhar Mahato and sundry other ‘Maoists’ taken into custody with unprecedented alacrity by the Bengal police recently when we were away, certainly explained to us the kind of strong criminal hold the ‘Maoists’ of Jharkhand enjoy in that poverty-ridden, over-populated, caste-riven hinterland of Bengal.

The day we left a desolate Hazaribag, we learnt that an inspector of the special branch pf the Jharkhand police, kidnapped by the ‘Maoist’ criminals earlier, had been gunned down and his body left horribly mutilated on the Bundi-Ranchi express highway - as an ‘act of revenge against the arrest of Chhatradhar.’

Earlier, speaking to the students, teachers, and the educational employees of the Ranchi University who unlike, say, their counterparts in the Presidency College or the Jadavpur university on this side of the geographical divide, revealed how they are bitterly apolitical and simply curse the ‘Maoists’ as ‘dacoits,’ and ‘lower caste’ upstarts, thus, supporting in a manner of speaking, the rôle of the armed and dangerous descendants of the erstwhile Ranvir Sena and the Sunlight Sena as the ‘effective counterweight’ of the ruling classes against the insurgents.’

CHHATRADHAR ‘CONFESSES’
Back in Bengal, we note how Chhatradhar has been warbling as a lark in spring about his closeness to the Trinamulis. Much anti-Communist fluff is being bandied about in the bourgeois media about what the criminal has stated or not stated to the police during the interrogations going on. The same big media has been expectedly sympathetic with the ‘cause’ that the history-sheeter and his backer-uppers elsewhere represented. We learn that until date Chhatradhar has gushed out these principal points amongst other complete non sequitors, blatant lies, and easily identifiable misguiding ‘confessions.’

‘Maoists’ it had been that had set up the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities or PCAPA. This happened on the second week of November of 2008. The committee was to act as the ‘front’ of the ‘Maoists’ and the Trinamulis plus SUCI.

PAID-UP TRINAMULI
Chhatradhar remained a paid-up member of the Trinamulis until his being taken into custody by the Bengal police. Trinamulis asked Chhatradhar to run from a ‘suitable’ Assembly seat from the jangal mahal, in the 2011 Vidhan Sabha polls. A top leader of the Trinamulis, close associate of the chieftain, went to Chhatradhar’s residence to inform him of this ‘award’ for the anti-Communist activities the villain had performed. Chhatradhar was clear in his mind that he would become the minister of a cabinet rank, once the Trinamulis came to office by whatever means in 2011.

The local Binpur constituency is a reserved constituency for tribals. Chhatradhar is not a member of any tribal community. He was asked to contest from the Jhargram seat where thanks to the process of delimitation which itself the Trinamulis had stood opposed to, the entire Lalgarh block would structure a large electoral segment. The entire plan was coordinated by members of the ‘civil society.’

Chhatradhar was asked to keep in close touch also with the Trinamuli toughs of Keshpur-Garbeta, Nandigram, and Sonachura so that a comprehensive anti-Communist insurgency would be set in motion in south Bengal in a big way as the Assembly polls approached, and this was to begin from the last quarter of this year to be continued till the polls themselves approached in ’11. More violence was on the cards, plus the usual depredations.

FUNDING APLENTY
Chhatradhar has received Rs 1.5 lakh by way of funds to ‘fight’ the Communists of Bengal and a forum called the Lalgarh Sanhati Manch had been set up to act as an open ‘democratic’ instrument to collect subscriptions and liaise with the big media, especially the news channel of the Patrika group.

In a recent interview to the Patrika, a ‘Maoist’ leader and one of the political masters of Chhatradhar, one ‘Kishanji’ alias ‘Koteswara Rao’ has clearly declared that the ‘Maoists’ would dearly love to ensure that the Trinamuli chieftain become the Bengal chief minister as she was the ‘most suitable candidate for the post.’ Elsewhere, just in case something else happened, Chhatradhar has set up a life insurance policy of Rs one crore, and the first instalment of premium set at five lakhs has been paid, source of funds yet stubbornly unknown.

The criminal has confessed that members of the ‘civil society’ were deeply ensconced in the ‘open’ support group and had demanded as the price of the monetary boost that Chhatradhar lead his goons into Kolkata and organise a show of arms at Esplanade which Chhatradhar duly did but sans any popular sympathy. Indeed, the ‘movement’ went steadily downhill since that show put up by a virtual gallery of rogues, criminals, goons, and hoodlums who were given bows and arrows, scimitars, axes, adzes, plus headbands of roughly-woven gamchhas, to pose as ‘authenticated’ adivasis.

STEP BACKWARD FOR THE GOONS
Finally the criminal said that from the time the police ops started in the jangal mahal, the Trinamulis allowed the ‘Maoists’ to come to the fore of the PCAPA and asked Chhatradhar to take a step backward. The ‘movement’ declined further. As the resistance put by the villagers later proved, the stepping back part indeed had to be executed by the ‘Maoist’ goons themselves and, as we write this, the resistance movement continues to grow in an ever-widening arc across the red clay zone of western Bengal, and the people of Lalgarh and its surrounds have come out openly to denounce and denigrate the ‘Maoists’ and the Trinamulis as undesirable, harmful, opportunistic elements - something that fear had kept them from doing over the past months, and years. A march of tens of thousands of people in the Salboni area and at Indus on 3 October is but one example of the people’s power in motion.

BY B PRASANT

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