People's Democracy

CPI(M) Workers Killed By Jharkhandis

RECENTLY, state secretary of the Bengal unit of the CPI(M) Biman Basu wrote that a class struggle, fierce and bloody and at the subterranean level was being waged in Bengal with repeated attacks by the urban and rural stakes and the political outfits they sponsor. The target is chiefly the CPI(M) and the acts are always blandly ignored by the corporate media, print and audio-visual. A series of killings in the ‘red clay’ zone of Bengal to its west bear testimony to the statement.

Early in the second week of June, the Jharkhandis pounced upon a CPI(M) supporter named Bikash Maiti (38) when he was on his way back from Jhargram Township to his rural abode at Dumuria, as evening descended. Comrade Bikash was travelling in a ‘trekker’ which are motorised and large tractor-pulled vehicles that offer a community travelling in the remote areas of western Bengal.

The Jharkhandis, armed and shouting vicious anti-CPI(M) slogans, stopped the trekker mid-way, at a place called Basak Bandh, pulled down Comrade Bikash Maiti, who was apparently known to the killers for his active Party work, and slashed him with large scimitars and spears. When Comrade Bikash who initially put up a brave if futile resistance bare-handed, fell down, bleeding from a multitude of head and chest wounds, the murderers emptied two country-made guns on his face and chest, and fled, shooting in the air. The area where the trekker was passing through is controlled by Jharkhandi toughs who often get armed assistance from Maoists from across the border.

Four days later, on June 15, much in the similar fashion, CPI(M) worker and DYFI activist Comrade Sheikh Siddiqui was killed at Jambani also in Midnapore west. Comrade Siddiqui was returning from Gidhni in a bus. As the bus slowed down on the far side of bridge across the Dulung River and came coasting to a stop at Nagdi, the Jharkhandi killers who had been waiting for the CPI(M) worker, surrounded the bus, broke the front glass panel shot in the air, and called for the bus passengers to identify Comrade Siddiqui.

Several Jharkhandis were already in the bus from a couple of stoppages away, covered in cotton wraps, and now they sprang into action. They knifed the hapless comrade and kicked him out of the bus into the hands of the killers who were waiting with demonic glee. The Jharkhandis then shot the CPI(M) worker six times, four bullets to the back of the head and four on his spine. Comrade Siddiqui died on the spot and the killers fled brandishing guns and spears into the surrounding forest cover.

A successful bandh was held in the Jambani police station area the next day. The CPI(M) leadership of Midnapore west have condemned the killings and have called upon the people to fight the Jharkhandis politically through mass assemblages, rallies, marches, and conventions. We recall how Comrade Siddiqui’s elder brother, CPI(M) worker Sheikh Sajjad was killed by the Jharkhandis four months ago in March.

Within a couple of days of the killing of Comrade Siddiqui, another CPI(M) worker, Comrade Anil Rana was brutally gunned down by the Jharkhandis with armed assistance from Maoists. The killing took place late in the evening at Jambani. Comrade Anil Rana was on his way back from a Party education class at Parihati high school and was on his way home to the Guiari village, an area densely covered in Eucalyptus and Cashew nut trees. It is widely believed by the Midnapore west unit of the CPI(M) that professional killers are being invited to Jambani, which is a CPI(M) stronghold, are given shelter in houses of Jharkhandi leaders and then they are being put to the gruesome task of launching a murder spree against the CPI(M). It is also believed that the local Jharkhandi MLA had had a hand in these killings, often identifying the CPI(M) workers to the killers. A districtwide campaign-movement was held against the killings under the aegis of the CPI(M) unit of Midnapore west. (B P)