People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
No.
40
October 03, 2010
|
Vol. XXXIV
No.
40 October 03, 2010 |
THE Lalgarh
Gram Panchayat
is now less than three kilometres at walk-on distance across the
forestry and
the bridle paths, the rice paddies and the small openings in the
heavily-foliaged undergrowth. Twenty thousand rural folk, the Red flag
held
high, trudged across what still is a bit unfriendly terrain. We,
however, speak
of the topography only, for the path has been clear of the ‘Maoists’
who fled
the moment the news spread that the marchers were on the move.
The slogans
from the ranks
of the processionists rang higher and farther than in the open acres,
and this
is typical in the countryside, and the slogans reverberated, ricocheted
and
echoed across the tree-covered areas, carried to great distances,
striking hope
amidst the villagers who live in the zone, and fear into the
cold-hearted
killers and their lackeys.
The march
started off
early enough on Friday, 24 September, a wet, rainy, cloudy morning it
was, and
the villagers who swelled the ranks of the marchers hailed from such
localities
as the hamlets of Bomadiha, Goaldanga, Simladanga, and Kushmora and
beyond
stretching right on to the edge of the Lalgarh GP.
All the places that we mention had seen
scenes of unbelievably physical cruelty and mental torture executed on
the
hapless villagers by the terrorists who take the name of Comrade Mao
Zedong but
in vain.
INITIATIVES
TAKEN
What was
highly
interesting for us was the initiative the marchers took, and the
bravery they
put on anvil of a do-and-die situation, by their pointing out of
deep-hidden
IEDs, land mines and ground-buried caches after caches of arms that the
terrorists and the criminals had left behind in their defeatist haste. The place of occurrence was Kantapahari,
another scene of ‘Maoist’ excesses.
The cache
recovered
contained uncounted number of country-made cartouches,
bagfuls of them in fact, 10 powerful detonators ready for activation
via either
proximal or distal devices including cell phones, hundreds of kilos of
low-grade explosives of the type used for making handy countrymade
bombs, three
rifles, numerous countrymade single-barrel guns, and one-shot
revolvers, and
bundles upon bundled of wiring material.
Two ‘Maoist’ lackeys who were found atremble behind bushes were
taken
away by the marchers and quietly without fuss handed over to the men of
the
joint forces, and no harm was caused to them, indeed having been fed as
well as
allowed a brief wash-up.
KILLING
CONTINUES
Elsewhere,
the killing
continued and yet another educational employee, 25-year-old Srikanta
Mondol was
gunned down in front of his parents, who, too, were not spared by the
‘Maoist’
in a killing spree, and are recovering in health centres nearby. Srikanta had earlier worked as a DYFI
local-level functionary, and was basically a bright young man who
showed his
skill with office work in his job of a clerk in the Sevayatan girls’
school at
Jhargram town.
Srikanta was
on his way
back home in his motorcycle with his mother and father riding pillion
when he
was accosted by a group of ‘Maoists’ who shot at the trio with
automatic
weapons. Srikanta lay dead in a pool of
blood. His parents cried out in feeble
voices for help having been shot and wounded.
When the villagers rushed out of their hutments, and regrouped
in the
area, the killers had gone away deep into the forest.
In fact, we
should have
said two such large and fervoured rallies taking place across the
length of the
metropolis. There was a serpentine march from the northern suburbs of
Kolkata
that traversed through Shyambazar crossing, Moulali junction and A J C
Bose
road, sweeping to the left from the Mullick Bazar crossing along Park
Street to
end on a flourish at the Park Circus maidan.
The second
rally started
from the southern suburbs of the metropolis, moved via
Tollygunj, the Rashbehari and Hazra crossings, Sarat Bose Road,
past Deshapriya Park, way through to Gariahat and thence along Gariahat
Road to
merge into the sea of people at park Circus maidan.
Biman Basu,
The rallyists
also held
aloft banners and posters that attacked the policy outlook of the
central
government that had led to the present price-rise, and to the lack of
will to
tackle the food crisis and the drought-like conditions across the
country. Biman Basu and other CPI(M)
leaders later
addressed a rally at the Park Circus maidan, before the dispersal in
quiet,
disciplined form of the marchers.
