People's Democracy

KLO Ultras Kill DYFI Worker

B Prasant

 HEAVILY armed KLO ultras organised an assault on the rural market place or haat at Banchukamari, three kilometres away from the town of Alipurduar in Jalpaiguri in north Bengal during the late evening of October 11. Comrade Sibcharan Thakur, secretary of the Banchukamari unit of the DYFI died in the shooting. 

The five KLO terrorists made straight for the small paan shop comrade Sibcharan Thakur runs in the evenings on haat days, and pumped six bullets into him from AK-47 rifles.  The DYFI leader slumped to his death in a pool of blood. To make sure that he was dead, the KLO murderers then shot him twice more on the side of his head.

Comrade Sibcharan’s shop is very often a center where local Panchayat workers gather.  On the evening the DYFI leader was gunned down, he was alone in the shop for a brief period.  The KLO had chosen to carefully bide their time before pouncing on Comrade Sibcharan.

When PD/INN got in touch with the local unit of the DYFI, the workers appeared very agitated over what they called “a clear lack of prompt police action.”  The police apparently turned up at the scene of the murder more than an hour after the incident, a period long enough for the assassins to make good their escape, taking advantage of the dark of the evening horizon.  In the meanwhile, DYFI workers had carried comrade Sibcharan to the nearest hospital where they had to listen to the “brought dead” report of the authorities.

The district police officials told PD/INN that a combing operation of the dense Parbit jungle, which abuts on the scene of the crime, has started and would go on throughout the night and the next day.  Recently the police had taken into custody two suspected KLO militants from the Banchukamari village.

Earlier, on October 9, two KLO ultras and a lance naik of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were killed in a shoot out that took place at the Pukuri village in the Kumargram area of the Jalpaiguri district.  The police had recovered a couple of AK-47 assault rifles and nearly 100 rounds of bullets from the spot. 

The Jalpaiguri unit of the CPI (M) believes that the KLO is losing ground fast in the dooars area, in particular, and that the recent spate of assaults are little more than a bluster of an attempt to try and cow the people down by gunning down workers of the democratic movement.