People's Democracy

Mine Blast By �Maoists� At Jambani Claims Lives Of Three Poll Workers

B Prasant

WHEN we reached the spot at a remote corner of Jambani in Midnapore west, where an improvised explosive device or IED detonation had taken place post-poll in the evening of April 30, 2009, we were met with the combined reek of blasting powder, of human remains -- the bodies were scattered over a half-a-kilometre radius -- and with the smell of death. The IED was buried in a desolate part of the road leading to Jhargram town.

Prasada Bandyopadhyay, polling work completed, rang up his ailing and elderly father telling him that everything was all right and that he was well on his way home, and then he asked of his three-year old daughter to �tell mummy to have some food ready.� He had hardly beeped off his cell phone when the world turned topsy-turvy for the Bandyopadhyay family.

The IED exploded with ferocious impact on the jeep Prasada and two of his colleagues, Sougata and his chauffeur Sanjay Das were travelling in. We found little evidence of the vehicle other than a few steel parts from the engine. The body parts were flung as high as the flowering Palash trees crowding both sides of the metalled road, trees that reached out 40 feet into the sky. A �Maoist� leaflet later clamed with glee that they had exploded the devices and that �many more deaths would follow.�

What is tragic is the fact that Prasada, who was a computer software engineer, and his men innocently believed in what the �Maoist� posters had earlier proclaimed in the jangal mahal that: �we shall only kill police personnel and not the civilian populace.� Does one believe the cruel, criminal, the merciless and opportunistic hunter of men and women, the social evil incarnate, and the people on the dangerous lunatic fringe?

As we had reported earlier, the presence of the fourth component during what was purported to be a tripartite meeting that the chief electoral officer of Bengal took with the Maoist backed �people� committee,� upset all equations, leaking in profusion the poll arrangements to the criminals and the killers. A slip meant the death of three men, and a dirge-like impact on their family units, especially as all three men who met with such a cruel end on the line of duty were the only earners in their household units.

Expectedly, none of the opposition political groupings, none of the foreign-funded �democracy-mad� NGOs, none of the members of the �civil society� would deign to utter a single word in empathy for the departed and for those the murdered left behind.

Earlier, last October, a similar IED blast had left a doctor Dhaniram Mandi, a nurse, Bharati Mandi, and the chauffeur Pranay Mishir, dead much in the same spot. It is believed by the local CPI(M) unit that the same gang had brought about the latest detonation and that they operate out of a remote forest area of Jharkhand across the porous border.

LOCAL PEOPLE REMOVE �MAOISTS� BLOCK OF KOLKATA STREET

Chhatradhar Mahato the self-proclaimed publicist of the �Maoist�-backed �resistance committee� of Lalgarh rallied the Trinamuli goons of the Tiljala-Topsia area of Kolkata during the afternoon of April 24, 2009, and blocked the downturn of the busy arterial link of the E M Bypass Park Circus connector, the only quick link between Salt Lake-Rajarhat-New Town and Kolkata proper. Some of the 300-odd of these protestors were adorned with bows and arrows, and had put on headbands.

However, the block would not last. Once the corporate media enjoyed their fill of still and videography, and that was over in fifteen minutes or so, and yet the roads by then had become jammed up with the evening traffic both ways, the blockers themselves started nervous movements as the local people streamed out towards them.

There was no jostle, the police kept the lathis safely tucked away if ready fisted, and it was the surge of the local populace that saw the weak-kneed, cowering �raiders� climb on to the bevy of buses that had ferried them in from east Kolkata �� and scoot away. Later the leaders spoke, motivatedly lying, of �police harassment� before a willing media.

The block saw the presence of not only the whole host of hardcore �Maoist� leadership of Bengal � who kind of slid back from the glare of attention � but also of the leadership of the Maoist-run �human rights� organisations, and of students who swear by Maoism in the Jadavpur University and the Presidency College. Also present was the Pradesh Congress leader Idris Ali and a few of his faithful.

Elsewhere at Keshpur a visiting team of the �Maoist�-sympathised �civil society,� that had made so much of uncouth and defamatory noise against the CPI(M) during the events of Nandigram in particular in 2007-08, had a run in with the villagers. The latter asked the visitors as to what had prevented them from going to Lalgarh where CPI(M) workers were killed by the dozen and in a planned mannaer.

Shocking is the word that can describe the response that spewed forth. One worthy said that it is the �CPI(M) that had brought it down on their heads by their �misdeeds.�� Another one went further and said, �It is good, very good that our men have killed CPI(M) workers, the CPI (M) are akin to simian creatures anyway.�

CPI(M) WORKER KILLED AT HOOGHLY

Bharati Mukherjee, CPI(M) MLA from Haripal cannot yet get over the horror of the event, the beating up, and the final, agonising death of a CPI(M) worker, comrade Bhaben Deeg, a member of the Haripal-II local committee. The rally that Bharati addressed at Haripur in Hooghly district was large and as usual, a big part of the assemblage was women. The success of any CPI (M) rally makes a burn-out case of Trinamulis, always. The Haripal rally was no exception.

Bharati was later to tell us that from the beginning one Labanya Deeg, a staunch Trinamuli, started to blare out piercing music from powerful speakers during the rally from his shop, which is nearby to the ground. This irritated the people no end, and a few CPI(M) workers standing near the shop approached Labanya and asked him at least to tone down the volume.

They were met with choicest of expletives. A clutch of Trinamuli workers who were inside the shop suddenly came out and started to beat up Comrade Bhaben till he was a bloody pulp, and very dead. The Party leadership brought the situation under control as the villagers by then had surrounded the Trinamulis and the latter, cowering, feared the worst. Zonal secretary of the CPI(M) Dulal Bhowmick called upon the CPI(M) workers not to loose control, even as they tearfully bade farewell to Comrade Bhaben Deeg later.