People's Democracy

Maoists' Kill Poor Kisan in Purulia

B Prasant

ON the inglorious run from extending tracks of the lal maati (red clay) area, the ‘Maoists’ have of late been concentrating in and around Purulia, focussing their general kill-and-terrorise tactics on poor farmers and landless labourers. The latest and hapless victim of such assaults is 45-year-old kisan, Santosh Majhi, whose primary ‘crime’ in the eyes of the murderers was that he had chosen to remain from his teenage years a staunch supporter of the CPI(M).

Perhaps his other ‘fault’ was that he had not flinched and run away from the Party ranks even when he was forced to bear witness, trembling with rage not fear, the butchering of his first cousin and CPI(M) worker of the Bersa branch of the Party two weeks ago. The criminals who take the name of the pioneer of the Chinese revolution but in inglorious vain, raided the village Bersa. They robbed the poor of whatever they possessed, molested the women, and left riddled with bullets comrade Haradhan Majhi who had led the villagers in a mode of resistance as a member of the Gendua local committee of the CPI(M). That had not shaken comrade Santosh.

 
Perhaps the final ‘offence’ committed by comrade Santosh had been that he would throw to the autumn winds the ‘notice’ served by the ‘Maoist’ vandals that he must immediately make a public declaration that he was disassociating himself from his beloved CPI(M). What followed had the hallmarks of ‘Maoist’ cruelty. It was a tragedy of sad proportions.

Comrade Santosh had toiled in the sun throughout the day of October 15, flattening the soft loamy soil that lie just beneath the literate layer, and had then watered the small strip of land that his family tilled. He then proceeds for a well-earned cool dip in a nearby water body at the lonely edge of the village. Death followed him there. Guided by the Trinamuli agents, a quartet of heavily armed ‘Maoist’ killers approached the pond, and shot the comrade several times.

Bravely, comrade Santosh thrashed his way to the edge of the pool from where the killers and their touts had by then fled, and clutched at weeds to pull himself up and over the edge, the water turned crimson behind him, and the villagers who rushed out at the rattling noise made by the automatic rifles, found comrade Santosh lying in a pool of blood, martyr's blood that has not been spilt in vain, the enemy should know.

Elsewhere, Biman Basu, addressing a meeting in Kolkata, underlined the importance of exposing the game-plan of the Trinamulis and their runners in the sectarian left and the reactionary right to disrupt the peace and tranquillity that had become a hallmark of the state with the Left Front pro-people governance. These attempts, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau member declared, were nothing but an attack on democratic norms. These must be resisted by the people with the CPI(M) playing a vanguard rôle.

He also noted the repeated failures of leadership and organisation in the running of one of the largest Railway networks in the world, i.e. Indian Railways. To all appearances, the railway minister was confined to the narrow sectarian outlook that covered the eastern and south-eastern divisions of the railways network. Even here, in eastern and south-eastern railways, there was constant mismanagement and increasing, as witnessed by the repeated failures of even the metro railway in Kolkata. Keeping the stiff accusing finger pointed at the CPI(M) for whatever happened in the running of railways in India would not divert the attention of the knowledgeable public about the crux of the matter –  a colossal and crass failure at the top of the ministry. Other CPI(M) leaders who addressed the rally were Rabin Deb and Mohd Nizamuddin.

BOOK ON 'MAOISTS'

RELEASED

CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was confident that the Trinamul Congress would never be able to turn Bengal into a ‘killing field’ with help from the ‘Maoists.’ The dream that the Trinamul Congress indulged itself in, hand-in-hand with the left sectarians would never fructify and succeed.

He spoke to media at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan after releasing a book book on ‘Maoism’ and its political bankruptcy written by CPI(M) central secretariat member Nilotpal Basu. The chief minister pointed out that the ‘Maoists’ believed in and practised individual assassination and terror-tactics, and they are aided in the condemnable work of theirs by the Trinamul Congress. That the 'Maoists' helped in turn the forces of reaction was clear and proved from the position and function of the Trinamul Congress.

The plan is that the ‘Maoists’ shall ‘clear’ the ground and then the Trinamul Congress shall go and hoist the ‘political ’petard of theirs, there. The return of the people who had been made homeless proved that the qualitative change in the situation was assuming the form of inevitability, signalling the defeat of all attempts to the contrary of democracy and development.