Calcutta, July 26: The People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA) and other Maoist-backed organisations today accused Mamata Banerjee of betrayal over her government’s failure to release the outfit’s leaders and withdraw joint forces from Jungle Mahal.
The organisations held rallies in Jhargram and Calcutta where some of the activists burnt her effigies.
Mamata has declined to immediately release top Maoists as well as PCPA leader Chhatradhar Mahato, who had contested the Assembly polls as an Independent.
The chief minister, still waiting for the outcome of her talks offer to Maoists, met police officers at Writers’ today to discuss the Centre’s alerts that Maoists were regrouping in Jungle Mahal.
In Calcutta, the Maoist sympathisers clashed with police who tried to prevent them from erecting a “column” for the martyrs of the Singur-Nandigram and Jungle Mahal movements at College Square. They demanded the immediate release of all political prisoners.
Twelve members of United Student Democratic Front (USDF), a Maoist sympathiser group, were arrested in the protests that saw the chief minister’s effigy being burnt and a stretch of College Street blocked briefly. “We burnt Mamata’s effigy because we were not allowed to erect the martyrs’ column even after she extracted political mileage out of their sacrifice and popular movements,’’ USDF leader Lokeswari Dasgupta said.
In Jhargram, Belpahari and other areas of rebel-hit West Midnapore, rallies were held for the “martyrs” by the Forum Against Terror, Corruption and Imperialism, an umbrella organisation of the PCPA, Jhargram Students Federation, Nari Ijjat Bachao Committee and others.
The list of the “martyrs” included top PCPA leaders Lalmohan Tudu, Sidhu Soren and Umakanta Mahato, killed in alleged fake encounters by the joint forces. Today was with the first death anniversary of Soren, a Maoist commander shot down last year in a Goaltore forest.
The Jhragram meeting was attended by the families of Tudu, Soren and Mahato as well as Niyati Mahato, wife of Chatradhar. They demanded immediate release of jailed PCPA leaders and supporters, judicial probe into alleged “fake encounter deaths” and alleged massacres by the CPM.
“Mamatadi has forgotten her election pledges to us about the release of our leaders who have been jailed under false cases and withdrawal of joint forces who have violated our dignity,’’ Niyati said. Niyati complained that she and members of other jailed leaders were stopped and searched on their way to court in Jhargram by the joint forces a few days back. Soren’s family alleged their homes were ransacked while they were away.
Asokejivan Ghosh, a leader of the forum against terror, denied intelligence reports of a truce between the armed CPM harmads (armed cadres) and the PCPA. “This baseless campaign is the replay of what the earlier regime had mounted against us to kill and gag a popular movement. But there is no post-poll violence in Junglemahal. We will move ahead with our campaign for democratic rights,” Ghosh said.
Bandi Mukti Committee leader Choton Das, who is a member of the government-initiated activists’ panel to facilitate talks with the Maoists, criticized the ‘police attack ‘at College Square and demanded release of the arrested.
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