Lalgarh operation continues, 4 More Bodies Recovered

Kolkata: The West Bengal police on Thursday began an operation to reclaim the areas in West Bengal's Lalgarh captured by the Maoists since Monday even as four more bodies of communist supporters were recovered, taking the toll to 10 in the past week.

"The operation by state police has started in Lalgarh. The paramilitary forces would move in soon," said Kuldip Singh, IG (Western Range), over phone.

While the police began their much awaited operation, the villagers backed by Maoists started digging up roads and cutting trees to stop the movement of securitymen in Lalgarh, about 170 km from here.

Meanwhile, Midnapore West Superintendent of Police Manoj Kumar Varma said four more bodies of abducted CPM men were recovered from Goaltore near Lalgarh on Thursday morning.

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On Wednesday, assailants riding motorbikes raided the villages and killed three CPI(M)leaders, including a functionary of its student wing SFI, in Jhargram in the same district. The victims were all part of a village resistance group helping the police.

Earlier the Maoists killed three CPI-M activists.

TV footage in the past few days showed CPI-M leaders` houses set on fire in Lalgarh and villagers led by Maoists demolishing their houses, seen as symbols of corruption indulged by the communists.

West Bengal chief secretary Ashok Mohan Chakraborty on Thursday said villagers, especially women and children, are being used as shield by the Maoists.

"This is inhuman and dangerous. The women are being dragged into this terror acts. I am warning those doing these action through media. The local women, villagers are not associated with this. I warn the rebels not to use them as shields," he said.

Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday said that the Centre had dispatched enough paramilitary forces to the troubled areas.

West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on Friday to discuss the Lalgarh situation.

While JSW Steel, India`s third largest producer of the alloy setting up a plant in nearby Salboni, said they were waiting and watching the situation, the industrialists were worried.




``The government should have in place a systematic plan to cope with the situation,`` said Mukul Somany, the eastern region chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

``If the situation persists for over a month it would impact industrialisation in the state already slowed down by recession,`` he said.

Noted economist Abhirup Sarkar said the incidents would affect the state badly.

``The communists did not want to leave industrialisation of the state to free market forces to ensure benefits of the rain seeking classes in the party, and now they are trapped in the process with growing unrest,`` said Sarkar, an economist at the Indian Statistical Institute.

``The state government should have ideally restricted itself to the role of a facilitator by building infrastructure,`` he said.

Lalgarh, which is only three hours' drive from state capital Kolkata, has turned into a free zone after the police fled the region, leaving the rebels to torch their empty camps and offices of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), the largest party in the state`s left coalition government.

A rebel leader in charge of the Lalgarh area in a telephonic interview to a local TV channel on Wednesday said they would strive to defeat ``half-feudal, half-colonial`` style of functioning in India.

``We want to set up democracy in true sense and fight the state terror unleashed by the forces like CPI-M,`` Maoist leader Bikash told Star Ananda channel.

Images: Lalgarh under Maoist attack

``We don`t believe in killing. We only avenge the violence,`` he said.

The Maoist leader, who shocked the authorities by holding a press conference openly with his back to the TV cameras on Monday, admitted their aborted plans to kill West Bengal’s chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

``People want his hanging. We are only acting as midwives to let out the anger of the people,`` he said.