People's Democracy

WEST BENGAL

 

Maoist-TMC Criminals

Murdering Teachers

From Our

Special Correspondent

 

IT was “Teachers Day”. Readers of newspapers in West Bengal were thoroughly shaken by a splashing photo appearing in front pages of some morning dailies. A teacher’s dead body was lying in pool of blood in Shalboni, West Midnapore.

Annihilations, particularly of CPI(M) cadres, have become a regular feature in that district. It was nothing new that another brutally killed person would lie mutilated in broad daylight. What surprised and shocked the people was that Dibakar Mahato, the head master of Shalboni Junior Basic School, was tightly holding his pen in his right hand at the moment of death. His school, from where he was dragged out, was the backdrop of most of the published images.

Dibakar Mahato , a member of CPI(M) Aguiboni Local Committee was taking his classes in standard three, when he was attacked by Maoists. The children saw what happened next. Firing from point blank range and a last gasping for breath. Whether they would remember the scene for the rest of their life is anybody’s guess, but the image has finally signaled how ominous the threat was. It was not merely a threat to CPI(M) cadres, a threat to the whole edifice of civil society.

In last one year, 10 teachers have been killed by the Maoists in jangal mahal area of West Bengal. This degenerated lot along with their cohorts in Trinamul Congress has killed 12 agricultural workers, 16 poor or marginal peasants, at least 5 daily labourers and 52 adivasis and dalits in just one year. They have also killed three students; one of them was a student of class ten. It shows the true nature of so-called ‘army of the poor’.

In September, 2009, para teacher Kartik Mahato was brutally killed within the classroom in Barjamda Primary school in Lalgarh block. The children witnessed the details of the killing. Karamchand Singh was also killed while he was taking a class in a primary school in Belpahari. On 23 July this year, 'Maoist squad entered in Indrabani Primary School in Jhargram and shot dead the head master Rabindranath Mahato. They also dragged the body out of the teachers’ room and shouted “Long Live Maoism” before fleeing. Ramdas Murmu in Bankura, Anil Chalak, Guiram Singh, Gurupada Mahato in West Midnapore, all teachers who fell prey to the blood thirsty politics of the 'Maoist'-TMC combine.

Signs have already crossed the line of warning. In the recent period, 23 teachers have been killed by TMC and 'Maoists' in different districts of the state. One after another school, college even university premises have seen the anarchy and armed attack of TMC activists. It seems a thoroughly planned attack on the educational institutions of the state. The people of West Bengal have reasons to worry. In the five years prior to 1977, the state witnessed mayhem in educational institutions with 40 school teachers and lecturers were murdered. The victims included Gopal Sen, the then vice chancellor of Jadavpur University who was killed in the university premises itself.

Do the sensitive intellectuals and social activists have time to think for a while about the nature of anti- Left Front movement for so-called ‘change’ in West Bengal?