Undertrials Clash With Police In Bengal Jail

Saturday 02nd of June 2007 A group of undertrials led by a Maoist leader and a Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) militant clashed with police at a prison in West Bengal Saturday over poor facilities in the jail.

Many of the inmates of Malda Correctional Home in north Bengal got injured in the clash and were admitted in the jail hospital.

The incident occurred after the group of prisoners had a heated exchange with the policemen over the lack of facilities.

Later, the war of words led to a scuffle and the situation turned grave with the police resorting to heavy baton charge to disperse the irate jailbirds.

‘It was a minor skirmish between inmates and the jail officials who were demanding some facilities in jail. The situation initially became violent but later it was taken under control after the police used baton and dispersed the disgruntled prisoners,’ West Bengal Minister for Social Welfare and Jail Biswanath Chowdhury told IANS.

According to Malda jail sources, tension was brewing since Friday as the inmates had been constantly demanding better facilities for them.

Jail officials said undertrial Maoist leader Animesh Chakraborty and KLO militant Malkhand Singh attacked the police which led to baton charge.

Newspost

Back-to-back Maoist strikes stun Lalgarh, West Bengal

Midnapore, May 28: Barely 24 hours after they attacked the house of a CPM leader, Maoists killed the father-in-law of another in a raid mounted last night.

Manik Mahato, 68, was shifted to Midnapore Medical College and Hospital with stab wounds, but succumbed to his injuries this morning.

Manik’s son-in-law Upen Mahato is a CPM local committee member.

The incident took place at Jamda village in West Midnapore’s Lalgarh area. The place is only 2 km from Nera village, where an attack on CPM zonal committee member Sheikh Khaliluddin was foiled on Saturday-Sunday midnight.

Khaliluddin’s bodyguards and some 20 villagers with bows and arrows had fought off Maoists.

Shaken by the twin attacks in such a short span, villagers in the Lalgarh area are blaming the police for doing nothing to fight the threat.

“We suspect that it was the same gang that attacked Sheikh Khaliluddin’s house on Saturday night. We have reports that there were some local pe-ople, too, with the guerrillas. We are trying to identify them first,” West Midnapore superintendent of police R. Rajsekharan said.

CPM district secretariat member Dahareswar Sen ac- cused the Jharkhand Party (Naren) of orchestrating the attacks.

“The party is taking help from Maoists to create terror in the CPM-dominated Belatikri village panchayat area. Bypolls were held there on Sunday.”A group of nearly 30 Maoists stormed Upen’s house around 11.30 pm last night.

“My mother (Bilasi), father (Chunaram) and father-in-law tried to prevent them from breaking open the door. Some of them fired through the cracks. My mother was hit in the back and my father-in-law in the right palm. As they held themselves against the door, they stuck in a spear through a crack that pierced my father-in-law’s chest,” said Upen.

The CPM leader said the firing stopped after about half an hour. “When I came out, about five of them chased me. I started running for my life and managed to escape.”

When the police finally arrived around 12.30 am on Monday, they were surrounded by angry villagers.

“There have been three attacks on me over the past two years but I haven’t been given a bodyguard. Even after the attack at Nera village, there was no additional deployment of police,” Upen said.

SP Rajsekharan said that isn’t true. “The police rushed to Jamda from Gopalpur as soon as they heard the gunshots. Our men removed the injured people to hospital.”

The Telegrap

Maoist activities mount in Purulia

Statesman News Service

PURULIA, May 24: The spate of Maoist activities in Purulia and its adjoining areas, especially in the villages, has terrorised the people of the district.

Two armed gangs of Maoist rebels attempted to murder Mr Gobardhan Majhi, CPI-M zonal committee secretary of Balarampur, Purulia; and Mr Manzoor Khan, a member of Purulia district CPI-M committee and a leader of CITU in Balarampur, 50 km from Purulia town, at their respective villages, Padamdih and Rasuldih, about 7 km from Balarampur town.

Mr Manzoor Khan is popular in the area not only as a political leader but also as a sports personality. It is primarily because of his efforts that a local school became the champion in the prestigious All India Subrata Mukherjee Cup football tournament held in New Delhi.

After the attacks, both the politicians fled their villages, sensing danger. Disappointed at not being able to find Mr Gobardhan Majhi, Maoists rebels allegedly tied his relatives and went in search of him. They, however, fled when villagers arrived on the scene on hearing the relatives’ screams.

After three days of the incident, many Maoist leaflets were seized by police at Tentalo village of Balarampur. Thousands of leaflets were also found at Raidih, Berada and Baradih villages of Barabazar block in Purulia district last week. In those leaflets, Maoists threatened allegedly corrupt representatives of people, including MPs and MLAs. Maoists also warned against illegal activities like the country liquor trade.

Meanwhile, the CID submitted the chargesheets against Mr Dipanjan Mukhopadhyay, Mrs Kanika Debnath, Mr Pradip Saha and Mr Gaur Narayan Chakraborty, after three years of the murder of Nilmadhab Das, OC of Bandwan, Purulia.

He was brutally killed on 11 October 2003. The chief judicial magistrate of Purulia Court accepted the appeal of Mr Sagar Mondal, the advocate of the four accused and the hearing will be held on 11 June 2007.

However, Mr Ashok Kumar Prasad, SP, Purulia, ruled out the possibility of Maoist being behind the incidents in Balarampur and Barabazar, judging from the style of operation.
A police officer said: “Let us conduct an inquire first, may be others were behind the incidents”.

The Statesman

‘Stop torturing us, else we flee towards towns’

Stop torturing us, else we flee towards towns.’ The anger against police spills on to the streets in around 200 villages along Jharkhand-West Bengal border.

Disgruntled by the unleash of torturous treatment to them for allegedly siding with naxalites, the villagers, breaking boundaries of state and region, have joined hands and virtually issued a fatwa against police of the two states warning them to refrain from harassing innocent people. “If you continue with the torturous treatment,” villagers warn police, “We would migrate to the nearby towns to settle, demanding camps and compensation alike the Kashmiri and other refugees.”

What has prompted them to take such a major decision? HT visited few such villages, mostly inaccessible, to hear their grievances. The resentment against police was apt. For, villagers complain that ever next day police of any of the two states would raid their homes and pick up men and youth on suspicion of being a naxalite or aiding the Red Brigade.

During the last one and a half month, Jharkhand police has arrested at least 15 persons from Kesarpur panchayat alone, most of them charged with conspiring and assisting naxalites in killing Jamshedpur MP, Sunil Mahato. Villagers vehemently deny their involvement in the gruesome act, and vouch for their innocence.

Situation in bordering villages of West Bengal including is no different. People in Dwarsini complained that police raid their homes, pick up innocent members of their families, and also loot cash and belongings. A case in point is the arrest of Dumkakocha youth, Sunil Singh for his alleged involvement in the blowing up of Dwarsini Tourist Lodge.

A visibly anguished, younger brother, Anil Singh told HT, “My brother was a yoga trainer with Art of Living (AoL) camp at Ghatsila, besides serving part time for Sahara finance. When Bandwan police raided our home for him, Sunil had in his possession Rs 40,000 cash he had collected from his clientele. They took away cash and other valuables along with my brother for a crime he had never committed.”

With the situation turning worse each day, the aggrieved villagers felt the need to raise a concerted voice against the atrocity by law enforcers, and thus formed Border Jungle Mahal Jan Jagran Samity (BJMJJS). The Samity recently has taken out two massive rallies in the Bengal side protesting against police atrocities, and demanding immediate release of innocent people trapped on naxalism charges. A similar rally is being planned in Ghatsila (Jharkhand) shortly.

“Police torture us in the day, in the night its naxalites. If living in village were a crime, we would love to migrate to towns and cities,” observed BJMJJS chairman, Panchanan Singh. Ram Chandra Murmu, secretary, Majhi Pargana Mahal, supreme socio-religious body of tribals in the area too confirmed police atrocity against innocent villagers.

Police claims the agitations ‘naxalite sponsored’. “The Maoists are instigating villagers for such acts,” DSP Ghatsila, Shailendra Burnwal said.

Hindustan Times

Mamata wakes up to Naxalite hijack threat

Calcutta, April 18: Mamata Banerjee is trying to distance herself from Naxalites, who were threatening to hijack her movement against land acquisition. She revealed her intent to part ways with the rebels — a regular feature in her road shows and rallies — to some close aides last week when they complained about the Naxalites’ “growing clout” in the Trinamul Congress-led Save Farmland Committee.

The committee was floated during land acquisition for the Tata Motors project in Singur. “We must not allow the Naxalites to flaunt their clout before us. Trinamul is by itself a force to reckon with,” Mamata was quoted as saying.Pushed to the brink of political oblivion after her party’s crushing defeat in last year’s Assembly polls, Singur, Nandigram and the Naxalite supp-ort helped her stage a comeback. “The Naxalites helped her re-establish contact with the grassroots,” a Trinamul leader said.

Although larger Naxalite groups like the CPI(ML) Liberation and the CPI(ML) led by Kanu Sanyal are not with Mamata, four smaller ones played an active role in the land war. They were responsible for many of the guerrilla attacks on the fencing — uprooting posts and setting it on fire — around the Tata plot in Singur. From the anti-acquisition movement, the focus of the Singur agitation shifted to law and order, thanks to the violence.

Mamata refused to share a platform with the Naxalites at an anti-acquisition rally at Esplanade on Friday. Her “disenchantment” with the direction in which the rebels had steered her movement became apparent when she said that day she was opposed to the bid to pull down the Tata fence. The Trinamul chief has also sent directives to party functionaries in the districts to see to it that Trinamul is not perceived to be anti-industry.

“With the panchayat polls only a year away, we can’t afford to rub shoulders with the Naxalites,” a Trinamul leader said. “Our links with them will spell bring disaster in the polls since most people are scared of the extremists and do not trust them,” he added. Naxalite leaders admitted that political compulsions have strained Mamata’s “association” with them.

“She has to keep her own political identity intact. She does not want to be branded pro-Naxalite despite being keen on taking our help to resist land acquisition,” said Purnendu Bose of the West Bengal State Organising Committee of CPI(ML). Another rebel leader said Mamata has adopted a calculated ploy of maintaining equi-distance from the Naxalites and the state BJP. “She is with the NDA at the national level, but not in the state where the Jamait Ulema-i-Hind is part of her movement. In the same way, she is very much with the Naxalites, but doesn’t want to let them steer the course.”

The Telegraph

State repression and Resistance

Bujhicho upen

This film is about to people movement in Nandigram in West bengal(India). Nandigram is a rural area in Purba Medinipur district of the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located around 150 km from Kolkata, on the south bank of the Haldi River, opposite the industrial city of Haldia.

The area falls under Haldia Development Authority. Communist Party of India has a strong presence in the area. It not only holds Nandigram constituency but also neighbouring Patashpur, Panskura (West) and Tamluk. Illias Mahammad Sk. is member of the state legislative assembly from Nandigram.

In March 2007, Nandigram was the centre of civil unrest over a special economic zone, which the state government had proposed for the area. 160 people were killed at police firing nad over 200 are missing still. All killed were villegers, no police were among the dead. But this documentary film shows the movement in early stage, not the March incident

Starvation Deaths in Amlashol, West Bengal

This documentary by Anya Chabi explores the death of Anjana Pramanick in Amlashol, 2006. Probing the causes, it finds that she, and others like her, died due to hunger, government apathy, unemployment, and suffering.

Images of Development

A video film on eviction of slumdwellers

Invisible City

Railway shanty dwellers fight against dislodgement

for beautification

The fight of Ballugunj (Calcutta) rail colony dwellers to hold on to their shanties, in the face of forcible government displacement to make way for beautification. A probing look at their lives, their personal stories, their leaders, and their struggle. Especially relevant during the ongoing struggles in Singur and Nandigram.

An open letter to Sudhir Mahoto, Dy, CM of Jharkhand

Naxal Revolution

Communist Party of India(Maoist)

Bengal-Jharkhand-orissa regional committe

Date – 08-04-07

To

Mr. Sudhir Mahato

Dy. Chief Minister

Jharkhand

Mr. Mahato,

Our Party has boldly carried out people’s verdict by executing the leader of Nagarik Suraksha Samiti (NSS) and MP of your party on 4^th March 2007. Since then you have been issuing false statements from time to time purportedly denigrating the CPI (Maoist) and its role in the state. Your aim and motive is clear to the people. However, we feel it right to challenge your statements and warn you against letting loose a barrage of lies cooked up at the diktat of corporate houses, native and foreign and the state’s landed gentry. With all this, in order to cover up the failures of your government – a visible symbol of betrayal of the much-propagated cause of the common masses of Jharkhand – you the people in power are trying to attack us, sending troops to create white terror by regular combings and savage brutalities. We have the right to answer all such fascist methods in a befitting manner.

To come to your false propaganda about your espousing the cause of the Jharkhandis, we iterate it clear and loud that you have betrayed them in every conceivable way. You and your party’s high-flying corrupt leaders have proved traitors to the long-cherished dream of a democratic Jharkhand or Lalkhand, free from loot, oppression and plunders of the exploiters. You claim to be do-gooders of the common people. It is down right falsehood. Your statements against the Maoists’ activities for the Jharkhandis in East Singhbhum are all nonsense. Is it not a fact like the daylight that the oppressed Santali, Bhumij, Urav, Munda, Ho Adivasis and other non-Adivasis have rallied en masse behind our Party that has been leading their struggles for an exploitation free Jharkhand? Can you suppress the fact that you and your party leaders have turned into confirmed oppressors and mafia gang leaders who have amassed huge fortunes overnight? Can you prove with a single instance that the JMM leaders are not the faithful dalals and chamchas of the Tatas, Jindals, Mittals and many multinational companies who are out to loot Jharkhand and its people.

You the people are glorifying the notorious MP Sunil Mahato and trying to project Sunil as an honest leader killed by the Maoists. Can you explain how come Sunil, born in a middle peasant family, turned into a Karodpati as your party leader? You are equating the Nirmal Mahato – a genuine fighter against the Tatas and brutally murdered by the mafia gang engaged by the Tatas while calling him for a talk over displacement of Adivasis in 1987 – with the anti-people, mafia gang backer, fortune and power seeker notorious MP Sunil Mahato. Why this need to undermine the great image of the martyr Nirmal Mahato along with the Maoist revolutionaries? We punished Sunil Mahato and explained to the masses why we were forced to kill him. You propagate that we the Maoists are in for indiscriminate killing without people’s support. It is a dirty propaganda. We never touch anyone for punishment until and unless the person(s) and reactionary(ies) become confirmed enemy(ies) of the people. People’s court ( Jana Adalat) comprising the common masses decides on the punishment and only then it is executed by our PLGA with the active support of the masses. We adopted the same method while executing the people’s enemy, Mr. Sunil Mahato.

Mr. Sudhir, your friend Sunil Mahato was traveling in the same boat as you are doing now. From 2003 onwards whenever Sunil Mahato set his foot on East Singhbhum, he chose to provoke the masses against us, against our movement for an exploitation – free Jharkhand. He stood by the NSS. The criminal gang leaders Shankar and Dhanai were his right and left hands to execute his game plan in the district. His execution was according to the people’s verdict.

You and your colleagues are falsely preaching that Sunil was executed as he refused to comply with the monetary demand of the Maoists. It is dirty lie. This false propaganda has been manufactured to tarnish the revolutionary, dedicated image of the CPI (Maoist). We never execute a criminal like Sunil Mahato for petty money mater. What your dishonest criminal leaders can commit for grabbing the ill-gotten money we the Maoists simply hate it and can not permit such practice.

You the hated yes-men of the corporate houses and World Bank have given the call for Sendra campaign against us. You like the BJP and the Congress in Chhattisgarh are saying that such a campaign will being peace in Jharkhand by eliminating the Maoists. We declare that we are prepared to give a fitting reply to your fascist campaign. Remember it that when the Lango and other incidents of well-planned murders of our comrades were taking place the home minister of the erstwhile NDA had taken a resolution on such a murderous game plan. Later your guru Shibu Soren too supported such a notorious decision to mass kill our forces. Babulal, Arjun, Koda who became CMs of Jharkhand resorted to the policy of killing Maoists. But what has happened? Have we not got strengthened further and spread to newer areas in Jharkhand after brutal killings of the revolutionary Maoists? The Sendra campaign shall meet the same fact as the Salwa Judum has met in Chhattisgarh.

Listen, Mr. Sudhir Mahato and read the writing on the walls. Don’t think that the Jharkhandis will spare the notorious high priests of the JMM who only know how best to amass fortunes by all dishonest means being a part and parcel of the exploitative system controlled by the Tatas, Jindals, Mittals various MNCs and feudal landlords. Don’t forget that despite your false propaganda along with campaigns by the state’s armed forces the people of Jharkhand are advancing forward to establish an exploitation-free Jharkhand where Adivasis can live enjoying independence to develop their language, culture and to ensure basic rights to livelihood.

We stand by the people of Jharkhand.

Victory to the revolutionary people of Jharkhand.

Sukhdev

CPI (Maoist)

Bengal-Jharkhand-Orissa Regional Committee

Hindustan Times