People's Democracy

Maoists Kill CPI(M) Leader In Birbhum Village

MAOIST assassins, with conniving help from Trinamulis, brutally killed Comrade Nandalal Mistry (53), a member of the Khairashol zonal committee of the CPI(M) at Rajnagar in Birbhum bordering Jharkhand. This was the same region where exactly a year back, the Maoists had killed Tantipara local committee member of the CPI(M), Comrade Sridam Das.

The morning of September 22 saw Comrade Nandalal going to the Agayabandi school where he is the headmaster when he was accosted by three or four young men who were standing besides a parked motorbike. They asked for a motorcycle repair shop. Unsuspecting, Comrade Nandalal was pointing out the direction for the young men to take when the latter, trained killers all of a Maoist gang, fired at him twice. Both bullets found their marks at the close range from which they were discharged.

Bleeding profusely Comrade Nandalal sank to the ground and the cowardly killers then stepped forward and brutally slit the fallen comrade�s throat -- and then fled after throwing about Maoist leaflets that talked of class war and class assassinations -- through killing a mild-mannered and elderly headmaster and a dedicated communist, and the only bread-winner of a poor peasant family?

The grim fact of the matter is that the area has been earlier under the terrorist command of a joint Trinamul-Maoist-Jharkhandi gang. They also ran the panchayat. It had been Comrade Nandalal and the Khairashol zonal committee that organised and rallied the toiling masses � mostly kisans and khet mazdoors � to resist the killers and to wrest the panchayati bodies away during this year�s polls. The Trinamuli-Maoist-Jharkhandis have been plotting avenge since.

Biman Basu, secretary of the Bengal unit of the CPI(M) has strongly condemned the killing and has called for an early bringing to book of the culprits and their associates and henchmen. Marches were brought out almost immediately after the killing became known and the protest demonstrations would continue until September 26, the Birbhum district leadership of the CPI(M) informs us.

(BP)