LALGARH NEWS

Maoists threaten Lalgarh war
The Telegraph CORRESPONDENT

Midnapore, Nov. 12: Maoists today threatened an armed resistance in West Midnapore’s Lalgarh where tribals have been protesting police raids and detentions following a blast that missed the chief minister by minutes.

CPI (Maoist) state secretary Kanchan said: “We are with the people of Lalgarh. Our guerrilla squad is with them to build an armed resistance. I appeal to the Lalgarh people to follow the Nandigram path by setting up road blocks and snapping electricity and telephone connections to teach the CPM and police a lesson.”

Villagers armed with bows and arrows tonight placed at least 30 trees at various points on the road that branches off NH 6 and leads to Jhargram town. They also blocked the road connecting Jhargram with Jamboni. “They are trying to cut off the town,” a police officer said.

The road to Jhargram from Midnapore town had not been touched till late tonight.

In East Midnapore’s Nandigram, villagers led by the Trinamul Congress and all- egedly aided by Maoists had created a similar island of unrest, cut-off from the administration.

In Jhargram, the villagers wrote on the road: “The police have to explain why innocent villagers were arrested on suspicion of being Maoists.”

Tribal youths continued to obstruct the state highway connecting Midnapore town with Bandwan in Purulia.

“The Maoists have been instigating the villagers. We have got some vital information after questioning three persons picked up from Binpur and Jamboni on November 6,” said West Midnapore police chief R.K. Singh. He declined comment when asked why the intelligence branch had failed to tip off the administration about Maoist activities.

Armed policemen had pounced on schoolchildren returning from a soiree and tried to link them with the rebels while probing the blast at Salboni that hit a car in Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan’s convoy on November 2. Women were allegedly beaten up during the raids that followed.

District magistrate N.S. Nigam said the allegations of police misconduct would be probed. “I appeal to the agitating villagers to return home and let us redress their grievances through talks,” he said.

Detentions by ‘mistake’ that made Lalgarh dig up roads
PRONAB MONDAL

Lalgarh (West Midnapore), Nov. 11: Headmaster Asim Ganguly woke up on November 4 morning to hear two of his Class VIII students had been arrested in connection with the Maoist blast two days earlier. He couldn’t believe his ears.

“They are normal, innocent boys who wouldn’t dream of doing anything subversive,” the head of Vivekananda Vidyapith in Kanthapahari, Lalgarh, said today. “The police action was absurd, cruel and high-handed.”

The arrest of the two 14-year-olds and a friend — and police raids that led to women being beaten up — were the main reason Lalgarh’s villagers have dug up roads, Nandigram style, to keep the administration at bay.

Buddhadeb Patra and Goutam Patra were picked up with Aben Murmu — a 15-year-old Class VIII student from Ramakrishna High School — on November 3 night on suspicion of links with the Maoists who had tried to bomb the chief minister’s car the day before.

All three were freed on bail four days later but Ganguly hasn’t yet recovered from the shock. “Why didn’t the police get in touch with me first? I’ve taught these boys and watched over them for so many years now — wouldn’t I know what sort they were?”

Perhaps to give their action a semblance of credibility, the police had initially bloated the ages of the boys by four years each to 18, 18 and 19. However, the man they dragged out of bed at 3 the next morning in Barapelia village was 62.

Retired teacher Khamananda Mahato, who used to teach at Ganguly’s school, said: “Some 200 armed policemen surrounded my house, their faces covered with black cloth. They ordered me to accompany them.”

Mahato’s wife was ill and he requested them to wait till morning, but they would not agree. At Lalgarh police station, he was asked to identify a man he had never seen, and was held till 4pm. Mahato today said he was still “traumatised”.

“Mastermoshai was a very popular teacher. It’s absurd to link him to any anti-national activity,” Ganguly, 40, said of his former colleague.

District police chief Rajesh Kumar Singh admitted the arrests and the detention were “mistakes”. He said: “We had no evidence and so did not oppose the boys’ bail plea. We also dropped their names from the chargesheet.”

Mahato, Singh added, “lives in an area that is a Maoist corridor; so we thought he might know some of the suspects. Later we realised that he didn’t.”

The boys said they were returning from a baul performance at Kanthapahari, 4km from their home in Banshber, around 11pm when armed policemen pounced on them.

“They threw me by the collar inside a van, flat on the floor, my face shoved between their boots. Not a single question was asked, not who we were, or where we were from,” Aben said.

Within minutes, Goutam and Buddhadeb too were flung inside the van and, like Aben, lay prone on the floor.

“I was so frightened, I started crying,” Goutam said. “A policeman prodded me with his boot and shouted he would kick me to death unless I stopped. I tried to smother my sobs and then the van started moving.”

At Salboni police station, when the boys were repeatedly asked to name their dadas (Maoist seniors), one of them, clueless about what they were being asked, replied he didn’t have a dada (elder brother).

“The police slapped us and beat us but they got nothing out of us because we didn’t know anything,” Buddhadeb said.

After some time, they were pushed into the lock-up. “One night here, and you’ll be talking tomorrow,” a policeman said.

The boys were charged with waging war against the country, causing hurt with dangerous weapons and attempt to murder.

“How could the police think my son would do any such thing?” wept Pratima Patra, Goutam’s mother, at her mud hut. “I went to Lalgarh and fell at officers’ feet but they wouldn’t listen.”

The boys were released only when village after village erupted in protest. The agitators today dug up a road in Salboni and continued blocking the Midnapore-Bandwan highway despite a promise yesterday to repair it.

In Lalgarh, CPM leaders run for guns

Indian Express

Kolkata, November 14 : When it comes to political leaders moving with a gun-toting entourage, there is little difference these days between Western Uttar Pradesh and the Maoist-affected areas of West Midnapore.
During its trip to Lalgarh, several encounters of The Indian Express with the zonal leaders of the CPM proved that panic has struck the party hard ever since the tribal agitation began on November 5.

Those blessed with clout are granted security personnel from the state’s armed forces. The officials in the district administration confided that over 100 grassroots leaders now move with private protectors. The threat perception is said to be “real” from Maoists, who have strong pockets of influence in the region.

On way to Lalgarh, at Bottola Chalk near the local CPM party office, The Indian Express met Anuj Pande, the party’s zonal committee secretary. Moving around with gun-totting securitymen provided by the government, Pande still looks a scared man.