Blood continues to flow unabated in rural West Bengal. Seven people, including two women, were killed and at least 16 injured when a gang of armed people fired at them today at a village near Lalgarh, West Midnapore. The assailants were camped in a house at Netai village and alleged to be members of the armed units of the ruling CPI (M).
In the wake of the killings, Union home minister P Chidambaram sent a letter to Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, asking him to “reschedule all appointments and visit Delhi immediately”.
Chidambaram had recently used the term ‘Harmad Vahini’ to describe armed CPI(M) cadres. It led to a war of words between the Union home ministry and the state government through letters.
Joint operation forces, posted in the vicinity to combat Naxals, have entered the village.
Trinamool Congress chief and Union railway minister Mamata Banerjee has rushed to the spot and asked her party workers to arrange medical aid for the injured. The Trinamool Congress is the main Opposition party in the Left-ruled state.
According to information from the area, there was growing tension between the armed CPI (M) cadres and the villagers, who were allegedly supporters of the Trinamool Congress. The allegation against the cadres is that they’d set base in the village and started demanding food from the villagers, beside pressurising them to join their ranks and undergo training.
The firing took place around 11 am, after hundreds of villagers surrounded the house of local leader Ranjit Dandapadhyay, where the armed cadres had received shelter. According to an insider, though the Lalgarh police station is only four km away, police refused to intervene.
Though the chief minister had vehemently disputed Chidambaram’s earlier allegations, today he refused to comment. Speaking on his behalf, Sushanta Ghosh, a minister of his cabinet and in charge of development of the state’s western region, claimed that Naxals were responsible for the killings.
State Home Secretary G D Goutam told reporters the killings were an outcome of a political clash that occurred there this morning. The state police’s director-general, Naparajit Mukherjee, refused to comment on the development when asked by journalists.
The Trinamool Congress has called for a ‘one-hour dharna’ across the state tomorrow in protest against today’s killings. The party chief reiterated her claim that ‘harmads’ were very much active in the restive Lalgarh area.
Earlier today, the party had organised a protest march in Kolkata, led by their chief, with the dead body of three of their supporters who died of political clashes in Burdwan two days earlier.
CPI (M) state secretary Biman Bose, while addressing a students’ rally here today, said the TMC had incurred the wrath of the people in some places because of their ‘anarchic’ activities.
It is reliability learnt that central intelligence had provided the state home department with information that there existed two armed camps in Netai and Pirakata villages near Lalgarh, which could trigger some trouble. The report was sent to the home department 10 days earlier but was not heeded.
