People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
No.
20
May 24, 2009
|
Vol. XXXIII
No.
20 May 24, 2009 |
B Prasant
THE footfalls of anarchy are
heard � loud and clear �
across
In the name of a victory
procession, anarchy has been
let loose in a remote village called Solabagha at Uluberia in the
district of
Howrah, some 60 km from Kolkata during the evening and night of May 17,
2009.
Crossing the Mundeswari river
that is not yet in
spate, one could easily wade across the thin shallow flow and in the
dark of
the night, a band of heavily armed goons � maybe around 60 or 70 �
initiated the
attack with indiscriminate firing and bomb-throwing.
As the villagers, all of whom
were khet mazdoors or poor farmers, and they
were the people who brought a definite �lead� when the votes were
counted, they
became the target for this brutal assault. As the attack began, men,
women and
children started to flee, wailing at the sheer scale of terror.
LICKING
FLAMES
Soon the crackling sound of
licking flames were heard
as lighted torches were touched to the bone-dry hutment structures that
burst
into flames with an ominous debilitating sound, and the villagers were
witness
to their hearth-and-home, their everything consumed by an angry sweep
of fire as
the goons danced and whooped in macabre joy. They also made off with
several
dozen heads of cattle including cows, bullocks, goats and sheep as well
as fowls
and chicks.
Another group of the attackers
had meanwhile wrecked a
small rice mill, looted the half-a-dozen-odd small shops that the
village
possessed, and pulled down the flimsy sheds under which the villagers
would
gossip away idle summer afternoons over earthenware pots of tea. When we went to the village the acrid smell
of burnt paddy, charred clothes, and aluminium pots and pans that had
melted
hung acrid in the night air. There was an
eerie fearful silence, bar the occasional crackling sound of bombs
bursting at
a distance as the attackers made good their escape across the river.
The local CPI(M) leadership had
to make haste to throw
up a relief camp of sorts where the people from all the 44 hutments,
the small
village�s proud possessions, streamed in, shell-shocked.
Later as we motored duly out to make for the
comfortable life of the metropolis, leaving the villagers behind, the
police appeared,
as did a company or two of the Rapid Action Force along with what we
reckoned
were two fire tenders. By then, the
village had burnt down completely �� and the silence was the stillness
of the
graveyard.
ATTACKS IN
KHEJURI
Elsewhere, we were told, similar
attacks are being
mounted in areas of Midnapore east, especially in Khejuri that had
voted
solidly for the CPI(M) for the Tamluk Lok Sabha seat.
Right from the morning of May 17, Trinamul
goons led by the local gram panchayat member Ranjit Mondal streamed
into the
Khejuri block II comprising among other Nichaksaba, Janka, Boga, and
Kadirabad
villages. After entering the locales,
the criminals dug up all the roads leading into and out of the block
and even
rounded up at gunpoint the few police personnel present and pushed them
into a
hutment, closing the door on them.
Then the hoodlums started
kicking open the doors of
the hutments and pucca houses of those known to be workers or
sympathisers of the
CPI(M) and told them to go away from the locale, or else. A total of 40
families were displaced. The goons came
back in the evening and attacked the fresh police personnel who had
arrived
from the nearby station.
They heckled the police who held
their restraint, and
taking advantage of the situation, the Trinamuli goons set fire to two
police
vehicles, beat up three policemen, and prevented fire tenders from
coming into
the affected zone. By then most parts of
the village resembled a war zone with bursting of bombs, setting fire
to
hutments and pucca buildings, and indiscriminate looting.
The goons were soon reinforced
with many more of their
kind from nearby Trinamul-dominated Garchakraberia, Sonachura, and
Nandigram
block I. All of them were armed. The
final assault saw the police completely surrounded and the goons
running mayhem
in the entire Khejuri II block area. The
looting continued for some time before the goons finally left. By then a large part of village had been left
wrecked.
Elsewhere in the district, at
places like Bhagabanpur,
the hutment of the zonal secretary of the CPI(M) was wrecked and set
fire to,
while the zonal secretary, Gour Boll himself was left bleeding from
multiple
injuries. The hutments of 30-odd CPI(M)
workers were destroyed and the comrades left homeless.
RELIEF CAMP
ATTACKED
When a relief camp for the
importunate was set up at
Nimkihar nearby, that place too was not spared, reminding us of those
terrible
days and nights in 2007 when the Nandigram relief camps were treated
similarly. Around 250 refugees had to
find themselves scattered and cowering before the armed might of the
Trinamulis
who were led by history-sheeters like Laltu Pradhan and Pintu Pradhan.
At Habibchak in south 24
Parganas, Trinamuli goons generated
another fierce armed attack. They
started by trampling underfoot a martyrs column that had been erected
for some
time now and then entered the village proper and started to shoot and
lob
bombs. Dozens of CPI(M) supporters were forced to leave the village and
as they
fled, they saw looking back, everything in their meagre household being
either
looted or put to the torch. The scene
was repeated at Andharmanik, Bishnupur, Gholsapathali, Raskhali,
Doodhibasali,
and Panakura villages.
Hundred-odd Trinamuli goons
attacked the office of the
state government employees� coordination committee at the Kakdwip
sub-division.
Even women employees were not spared. The attack left several dozens
wounded
and bleeding and the furniture and computers wrecked.
There has been an attack by the Trinamulis at
different places in Basirhat in north 24 Parganas.
The roadside mounted boards of Ganashakti were
pulled down and in the m�l�e, as some CPI(M) workers
tried to
dissuade the misdeed, several of them had to suffer from serious
injuries from
sharp, cutting weapons.
RAMPAGE
IN NADIA
In Nadia, in fact throughout
Nadia, cities and
villages, Trinamuli goons were �in action.�
They wrecked offices of the CITU and of the roadways workers�
union, and
only retreated when the workers struck back.
There was another murderous attack by the Trinamulis at
Hasadanga in the
south Krishnagar area. Fishingfolk who
swear allegiance traditionally to the CPI(M) and the Left were
attacked. Many
were left with bleeding injuries and had their houses looted along with
their
fishing equipment. In Nabadwip, 17 May
saw a gang of Trinamulis, motor-borne, moving around the town and
calling upon
householders as well as shopkeepers to hoist the Trinamuli flag or they
would
be attacked with bombs and guns.
Up in north-central Bengal,
Maldah saw
Congress-Trinamuli combination run assaults on CPI(M) workers and
supporters,
especially at Gajol, Englishbazar, and Madanpur, leaving scores of
CPI(M)
workers injured, the womenfolk and children threatened, and their households looted. Attacks
were also organised at Sujali and
Patagura at Islampur, as we file this report.
LOOT
AT SINGUR
At Singur, scores of Trinamuli
goons streamed into the
factory premises beat up the security staff and made off with various
pieces of
equipment, motor parts, small lathe machines, gearing hobs, electronic
goods
and this went on for all of four hours, we are told.
While going away the Trinamuli goons raised
the slogan that wrecking apart the factory premises will now be
recognised as
the 100 days' guarantee of rural work.
FB WORKER
KILLED
Forward Bloc worker Arabinda
Mondal was the first
victim of the fresh round of post-poll armed assaults in
CHILDREN
NOT SPARED
Even children are not spared in
these attacks. At Bada Kaimari village at
Sitalkuchi in
Coochbehar up north in the state, the Trinamuli goons perpetrated a
heinous
crime on a small child of five. In the
name of victory festival, they tied a long string of crackers around
the body
of
At Kaliachak�s Nomopada,
populated by poor people
belonging to the scheduled castes, the Trinamuli hoods shot at the
hutments of
CPI(M) workers and supporters while indulging in terror tactics in the
name of
victory marches. Hutments were wrecked,
some set on fire, and the people driven away to take shelter in
neighbouring
villages, scattering whole families all over a large area.
At Englishbazar, also in Maldah, the haystack
of a poor CPI(M) worker Sudhakar Das of Shalihat was torched. The wrecking of boarded up Ganashakti
newspaper has continued
throughout the district as elsewhere in
CPI(M) MLA�S
HOUSE ATTACKED
The house in Jadavpur of
Chandana Ghosh Dastidar, CPI(M)
MLA was attacked. The attempts by Trinamuli goons to break into the
house were
somehow foiled by the local people. At Kakdwip, staying in south 24
Parganas,
Amoles Bhattacharya and Gautam Haldar of the CPI(M) were waylaid and
assaulted
� both are now recuperating from injuries at the Kakdwip hospital.
Away in
At Murarai in Birbhum, eighteen
CPI(M) workers
received injuries as a result of a sudden armed Trinamuli assault. The
vehicle
and house of Manik Sheikh, a gram panchayat member from the CPI(M) was
completely demolished by attackers waving the Trinamuli colours. This
happened
nearby at Maharalpur. Away at Nadia
district, the Trinamuli assaults and rampaging continued in places. At Ranaghat�s Phulia crossing the Trinamuli
hoods assaulted with sharp weapons CPI(M) worker Rabindranath Biswas
and even his
80-year old mother was not spared of the attack. Both
lie in serious condition at the Ranaghat
Alunia hospital.
TERROR IN
NORTH 24 PARGANAS
Widespread attacks are organised
throughout north 24
Parganas. A doctor at Barasat was
attacked and injured for his political affiliation with the CPI(M). Khamarpara local committee leaders of the
CPI(M),
Maidul, Rahaman, and Hamid were assaulted with sharp weapons and were
hospitalised. At Panihati in the same
district, four shops were wrecked.
At Sandeshkhali, the residential
house of AIDWA leader
Pritikana Das was attacked and wrecked.
More than 100 CPI(M) workers have had to leave their residences
and take
shelter elsewhere out of the district.
Attacks on Party offices continued in
