Midnapore (WB): Maoists struck with
impunity killing three youths suspecting them to be police
informers and shooting at and injuring a ruling CPI(M) leader
as West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee began a
tour of the district on Saturday to take stock of the situation.
Bullet-riddled bodies of three youths Lakhi Das,
Jayram Mandi and Manoranjan, with hands and legs tied were
found on a road in Kusbani jungle about 70 km from here, the
police said.
The Maoists left behind posters claiming the three
were police spies and CPI(M) agents and had been punished.
In Kolkata, Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen said the
three victims were Jharkhand Party activists.
Shortly after the chief minister arrived for a review
of the law and order and welfare measures in West Midnapore
district where tribals-backed Maoist unrest has been
continuing despite anti-Maoist operations by central
paramilitary and state police, local CPI(M) leader Subhas
Soren, was shot at, at Nandasole, about 75 km from here.
Police said Soren, a member of CPI(M)'s Gopiballavpur
district committee, was accosted on the road at around 5:30 pm
by suspected Maoists who shot him below the hip.
Soren a former MLA, was taken to Midnapore Medical
College Hospital where his condition was stated to be
critical, the sources said.
Meanwhile, the chief minister was shown black flags by
Trinamool Congress supporters at Nanoor Chowk in the town and
four persons were arrested in connection with the incident,
the police said.
Trinamool Mahila Congress supporters held a
demonstration before the Circuit House demanding the release
of the four, whom they claimed were students, when the chief
minister was closetted in a series of meetings with the West
Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura district magistrates, police
superintendents and officials of joint forces operating in the
Maoist areas of these districts.
In Kolkata, the Home Secretary admitted Maoists were
getting help from local people.
"The Maoists are getting local support. If the area is
developed, the local people will dissociate themselves from
the Maoists. The Maoist problem cannot be tackled only with
police action," Sen said.
Police operations against Maoists, however, would
continue as they were expanding their area of operations, he
told newsmen here before leaving for Midnapore town to attend
the chief minister's meeting.
Six hundred para-military personnel and around 4,000
policemen have been deployed in West Midnapore district
in view of the chief minister's visit.
The four were however released on bail later following
the protests by over 200 Trinamool supporters in front of the
circuit house where Bhattacharya was staying.
Asked if the TC demonstration in the high security
zone was not a breach of security in view of Maoist violence
in the district, a senior police officer explained the
demonstrators had sneaked into the area during change of shift
of security personnel and the area has since been sanitised.
Around 50 CPI(M) supporters later raised slogans in
the nearby area alleging police allowed TC activists to
assemble while putting a curb on the movement of common man.
Bureau Report