Maoist Communist terrorists surrender/caught

Dreaded Maoist arrested in Bihar

Sasaram Bihar | January 29, 2006 5:43:22 PM IST

Dreaded CPI(Maoist) activist Sanjay Paswan, responsible for the killing of eight policemen, was arrested at Nimhat village under Nauhatta police station of the Rohtas district last night.

Police today said acting on a tip-off, a sleuth of local police raided a hideout at Nimhat village and arrested the activist.

Sanjay was responsible for triggering a landmine blast at Gogadih village under Chainpur police station of the Kaimur district on January 13 in 2001, killing eight policemen on the spot.

The Maoist was at large since then, police added.

Vital clues were provided by the arrested Maoist during intensive interrogation, police claimed.

Maoist Dy Commander surrenders

Visakhapatnam | January 29, 2006 9:46:57 PM IST

A Deputy Commander of Gurthedu Dalam of CPI (Maoists) today surrendered before the police at Narasipatnam in the district.

Speaking to UNI here, Officer on Special Duty Vineet Brijlal said G Nooka Raju alias Rajesh expressed a desire to join the mainstream.

Rajesh who belonged to Chapuratipalem Village of G K Veedi Mandal had been involved in various incidents, including the recent attack on Sileru Police Station and exchange of fire near Nerajartha village.

''The surrender of K Mahesh, a key member of Galikonda Dalam four days ago and government's assurance that no cases would be filed against those who gave themselves up besides the promise of a rehabilitation package seemed to have had the desired effect,'' Mr Brijlal said.

We expect more naxals to surrender in the district. This would include not just the tribal youth lured by the insurgents but some of their leaders as well,'' Mr Brijlal said.

The OSD said, apart from some immediate relief, Rajesh would stand to gain Rs 50,000, which would be given to him to help him lead a normal life.

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Seven killed in Maoist attack on refugee camp

Seven people have died after Maoist Communists attacked a camp where 5000 people had taken shelter from Maoist violence.

Chhattisgarh: 7 killed in Maoist attack (Rediff.com)

At least seven persons, including three naxals, were killed following an attack by Maoists at a government camp in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh Monday, police said.

"A total of seven bodies have so far been recovered, including that of four villagers, staying in Gangalur camp," Bijapur police told PTI.

More than 300 armed naxalites attacked the camp, where about 5,000 people had taken shelter because of naxal violence, and killed four villagers, besides attacking a nearby police station, they said.

The ultras raided the camp for over an hour, in which four villagers were killed.

On hearing gunshots, security personnel rushed from the police station, but came under attack from the ultras, which was retaliated.

However, no security personnel was injured, they said. But in the counter offensive, at least three armed naxalites, including one woman, were killed, they said.

"Combing operation in the area is continuing and we are sure that more naxalites have been killed, whose bodies have been taken away by the Maoists with them," police said adding, investigation was on to ascertain if the ultras have kidnapped tribals from the shelter home.

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Did Communists falsify data about their boondoggles?

The West Bengal government has claimed that it cost the state exchequer only Rs. 18 lakh for the 14 foreign trips of the former Communist Chief Minister Jyoti Basu. Mr. Basu's foreign trips were elaborate affairs with an entourage accompanying him so the figure of Rs. 18 lakh is clearly is falsification. The purpose of the trip was to encourage foreign direct investment in Bengal, but as it has been pointed out in the article, chief ministers of states which attracted higher foreign direct investment didn't need regular foreign jaunts to entice investors.

Jyoti Basu’s 14 foreign trips cost state Rs 18 lakh only... (The Statesman, Jan 28,2006)
Excerpt:

The state government has stated that it incurred an expenditure of Rs 18,25,600 in connection with the foreign trips of former chief minister, Mr Jyoti Basu, between 1987 and 2000.
The government said this in a letter to the state BJP president, Mr Tathagata Roy, on 25 January. Mr Roy had asked for the information from the state government, exercising the right of a citizen in accordance to the Right to Information Act.
Incidentally, this is the first instance of the state government having to cater information to a member of the public after the Act has been enforced in West Bengal.
In a letter to Mr Roy, the joint secretary, home (political) department, Mr AG Ghosh, also informed that the state government had incurred another expenditure of Rs 4,60,722 in connection with the foreign trips of chief minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee for the period between 15 September, 2001 and 26 August, 2005.
The state has received foreign direct investment worth Rs 5,345.90 crore during 1991-2005, the letter added.
The state BJP chief, however, however, was less than impressed by the information.
“Mr Basu had undertaken at least 14 foreign trips between 1987 and 2000 — almost one trip a year. These trips used to last for three weeks to a month and he used to be accompanied by his family members as well as officials. Considering the huge expenditure involved, the figure given by the government is ridiculously low,” Mr Roy said today. “The question is, then, who had to foot the rest of the bill? Or has the government falsified the account to show a low figure?”
Referring to the information provided on the “poor FDI inflow” to the state over the last 15 years, he pointed to the Centre’s reply to a question raised in Rajya Sabha on 27 April, 2005 regarding FDI inflow in states.
According to him, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and other states received FDI to the tune of Rs 37,169 crore to 12,744 crore during this period. “None of the chief ministers of the above states undertake yearly jaunts abroad. The CPI-M owes an explanation to the people of the state on this misuse of public money,” the BJP leader charged.
The CPI-M state secretary, Mr Anil Biswas, refused to join issue with Mr Roy. “I can only answer questions on behalf of the party; it is for the government to respond to these allegations.”

Dead men voting - 2

EC identifies 3.5 lakh dead voters in WB rolls (The Hindu, Jan 28)

Kolkata, Jan. 28 (PTI): The Election Commission has detected the names of about 3.5 lakh dead voters in the electoral rolls of West Bengal and these are in the process of being deleted.

"We have identified nearly 3.5 lakh dead voters in the state's electoral rolls and the process has already been initiated to delete the names as early as possible," state Chief Electoral Officer Debasish Sen, told PTI here today.

"More such dead voters may be identified in the next few days," Sen said.

To identify those voters who had moved away, it would take a little more time, he said.

The Election Commission had earlier asked the state election department to take a serious view of the existence of the names of a 'massive' number of dead voters and also those who had shifted residence, in the electoral rolls.

The process would have to be completed before the publication of the final electoral rolls on February 15, Deputy Election Commissioner R Balakrishnan, said during a meeting with chief electoral officer and district magistrates who also double up as district returning officers, here yesterday.

Sen said he held a meeting with his department's officers during the day to review the feedback received from all the 19 districts and decided to issue directives to maintain the time schedule of the publication of final electoral rolls.

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It is ok to subvert the constitution says Comrade Yechury

The Supreme Court ruled recently that Bihar governer Buta Singh's act of dissolving the Bihar assembly was unconstitutional and he deliberately mislead the central government, this forced Buta Singh to resign and even his own party, Congress(I), is not supporting his actions anymore. However the comrades have decided that there is nothing wrong in subverting the constitution and they have come out solidly behind Buta Singh.

From Rediff

In a severe indictment of Bihar Governor Buta Singh, the Supreme Court on Tuesday held that he misled the Centre in recommending the dissolution of the state assembly and said the Union Council of Ministers should have cross-checked before accepting his recommendation.

The Supreme Court, which in its October 7 interim order had opined that the dissolution was unconstitutional, said the governor acted in 'undue haste' in sending his report and his full motive was to prevent Janata Dal-United from staking claim to form a government after a fractured verdict.

Giving detailed reasons why the dissolution was unconstitutional, a five-judge bench in a 3-2 judgment, said the governor misled the Council of Ministers by sending a report containing 'unascertained facts'.

...

Terming the governor's action as 'drastic and extreme', the bench said the court cannot be a silent spectator to such 'subversion of the Constitution'.

Sitam Yechury comes out in Buta Singh's support. FromNewindpress

A day after he quit as Governor of Bihar, Buta Singh got support from unexpected quarters on his recommendation for dissolution of the Bihar Legislative Assembly.

CPM politburo member Sitaram Yechury said that there could have been no other decision in Bihar as no party was in a position to form a Government and neither had staked claim.

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A day in the life of the Maoist

So you are considering becoming a Maoist activist, a brief glimpse of how you will spend your days in your new vocation.

You might get arrested for murder

Top Maoist arrested for murder of former Bihar MP (Newindpress.com)

A hardcore Maoist was arrested on Friday in Bihar for the murder of former MP and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader Rajesh Kumar in January last year.

Police arrested Vikash Yadav, zonal commander of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), in Paraiya block of Gaya district on Friday.

Rajesh Kumar, a former MP from Gaya and the LJP candidate from Imamganj assembly constituency in the district for the February 2005 assembly polls, was killed on Jan 22 last year, a few days before the elections along with his two bodyguards and a party worker.

Yadav, the main accused in the murder, was absconding since then.

or, you might get arrested for destroying public property

Four Naxalites arrested in Jharkhand (The Hindustan Times, Jan 27,2006)

Four Naxalites arrested in Jharkhand

Press Trust of India

Gaya, January 27, 2006

Four Naxalites, including a top activist of the banned CPI (Maoist)
involved in blowing up of rail tracks on the eve of Republic Day, were
arrested in Bihar's Gaya district on Friday, police said.

Self-styled zonal commander of CPI (Maoist) Vikash was arrested along with
two others at Gururu village during a police raid, Deputy Inspector
General of Police (Magadh range) Arvind Pandey said.

A revolver and 22 live cartridges were recovered from them, he added.

Vikash was wanted by police in connection with attack on Pariya police
station in July 2002 in which three policemen were killed. After looting
the firearms, the Naxalites had set ablaze the police station, the DIG
said.

He said Vikash admitted his complicity in blowing up the rail track
between Pariya and Guraru stations on Gaya -Mughalsarai railway section on
late Wednesday night.

Another hardcore CPI (Maoist) activist Vyasjee was arrested from Rajauli
in neighbouring Nawada district on Friday, the DIG said

or, more likely, you will be murdering people and blowing up property

Naxalites blast post (The Hindu, Jan 26,2006)

PATNA: Ahead of Thursday's bandh call, an CPI(Maoist) armed squad blasted the Keshar police outpost in Banka district and looted 10 rifles.

A policeman was injured in the operation carried out by some 50 armed naxals on Wednesday. He was shifted to Bhagalpur.

The naxalites carried out the attack despite a red alert sounded by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the light of the caution issued by the Union Home Ministry that terrorists from Pakistan had entered the country and Bihar was one of their targets for causing disturbance.

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HAPPY REPUBLIC DAY

HAPPY REPUBLIC DAY!
JAI HIND

Maoists blow up a railway brige

Maoists today blew up a symbol of repression -- a railway bridge. By blowing up taxpayers money and inconvieniencing passengers the Communists scored a double victory for the revolution.

Naxalites blow up railway track in Bihar (The Hindustan Times, Jan 26, 2006)

Despite a state-wide alert, CPI (Maoist) rebels on Wednesday night blew up a culvert between Paraiya and Guraru stations in Bihar's Gaya district. They also planted bombs at Deo Road station in Aurangabad district, paralysing railway traffic on the Gaya-Mughalsarai grand chord section on the eve of Republic Day.

Railway sources said traffic on the route has been completely paralysed following the incidents and several trains were stranded at Gaya and Anugrahnarain stations in Aurangabad.

Superintendent of Police, Aurangabad, Sushil Khopde said that over 40 heavily-armed extremists confined the railway staff at Deo Road station and planted bombs on the track at around 9.30 pm.

However, as a police contingent arrived at the spot, the Naxalites, who have called a nation-wide bandh on the Republic day, retreated without putting up any resistance.

All the staff were later freed, he said.

Khopde said a bomb disposal squad, which was rushed from Gaya by train to defuse the bombs, was also stranded after the culvert was blown up.

Earlier in the day, Maoist guerrillas attacked a police outpost in Banka district by exploding bombs and firing from guns and stabbed one havildar critically injuring him.

They also looted four rifles and one carbine.

Superintendent of Police, Banka, DN Gupta said over 50-60 heavily armed Maoists encircled the Khesar outpost under Belhar police station area in the district in the evening and threw several bombs damaging the building.

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Yankee Comrades celebrate bloodbath in India

Unlike the science and engineering departments, which are acclaimed for their high standards in research, the humanities departments in many American Universities are cesspools of hatred. Many professors use the classroom as a communist reeducation centre and try to pass shrill propaganda as research. So we were not surprised to come across an article by Gary Leupp, a professor of history at Tufts university, exulting in the orgy of violence unleashed by his Maoist comrades in India and Nepal, safely ensconced as a tenured professor in Massachusetts, Dr. Leupp daydreams about his murderous comrades overthrowing the state in India.

Some excerpts from his article:

It was a good year for the Maoists of India too. Their most sensational achievement of 2005 was the attack by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) on the prison in Jehanabad in Bihar, 50 kilometers from the state capital of Patna, on the evening of November 12. Biking around the town around 8:30, the Maoists announced “a militant action of revolutionary character” and warned people to remain indoors. Immediately cutting power lines, they continued to make announcements through a public address system for the next two and a half hours, as they attacked police lines, the offices of the district administration, and the jail simultaneously. Using conventional rather than guerrilla military tactics, they overwhelmed the police, who simply surrendered. While freeing 341 inmates from the prison, including senior local Maoist leader Ajay Kanu, they took the opportunity to assassinate at least two leaders of an upper-caste militia. The CPI (Maoist) lost only two fighters.

... those who have nothing to lose but their chains respond, today as always, with enthusiasm to calls for radical change. Their hope is the flipside of the official dread greeting the resurgence of Maoism in the new millennium.

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Communist child warriors

Maoist communists are using fourteen year old children as cannon fodder for their revolution. A sixteen year old Maoist was caught by police who had been working for the Maoists for over a year and a half, which means he was around fourteen years old when he was first indoctrinated by the Maoists. We had earlier discussed Maoist attempts to indoctrinate children in Jharkhand.

Sixteen-year-old Maoist surrenders (Newindpress.com)

Sixteen-year-old Maoist surrenders
Tuesday January 24 2006 10:47 IST

ADILABAD: A sixteen-year-old extremist belonging to the CPI (Maoist) Athram Chandansha alias Naresh alias Srikanth, a native of Rajuguda of Tiryani mandal surrendered to the district police here on Monday.

Producing him at the media conference, Superintendent of Police Kripanand Tripathi Ujela said that Naresh had been working in CPI (Maoist) party for the last one and half year. He had worked in Mangi and Indervelli local guerilla squads as dalam member and carried .303 weapon.

He had participated in the murder of Mekala Gangaiah in 2004 and also attempted to kill Babu Patel and Pendur Dattu.

He participated in the murder of Ganapathi of Balanpur earlier, the district police chief added.

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Maoist opium

No the Maoist Communists haven't become religious -- they have gotten into the business of peddling opium to finance their recreational activities of murdering and looting.

Maoists peddle opium crop (The Pioneer, Pioneer links do not work after a day)

Maoists peddle opium crop

Nityanand Shukla / Ranchi

The drought-stricken farmers of Jharkhand have found sympathisers in the
Maoists who are actively helping them "improve" their economic condition
while ensuring protection from the police.

These farmers are now growing opium with the help of Maoist ultras in
order to get an assured return for their produce. According to the police,
opium is being widely grown in Chatra, Palamau and Hazaribagh districts.

The going is not easy for the police and it had to face a tough time when
it went to destroy the opium crop in Pathalgada and Barwadah villages of
Chatra district last week. Some policemen were held captive for hours and
were released only when the other policemen retreated from the villages.

Chatra Superintendent of Police (SP) Shashinath Jha was reported to have
said, "There are reports that opium is being grown by farmers with the
help of Maoist guerrillas. They grow the opium inside wheat fields so that
it cannot be traced by the police."

According to police, opium is grown in Simaria block, Pathalgada,
Barwadah, Giddor of Chatra district and Charhi and Ichak of Hazaribagh
district. "These areas are only the tip of the iceberg. It is possible
that opium is being grown on a large scale in other parts of the State.
And the real beneficiaries are the Maoist ultras who corner lucrative
returns from drug peddlers" said a police official at the State
headquarters.

He said, "The Nepal border in Bihar is a transit point for drug peddlers
who are given a safe passage by the Maoists. The opium grown in Jharkhand
is supplied to Bihar and from Bihar it reaches Nepal and other
destinations."

Jharkhand's farmers are easily lured into the business because the land is
not fertile and the State faces a drought almost every year. The farmers
get their share from the opium business while Maoists directly who smuggle
it to the drug peddlers are paid hefty amounts. Police officials point out
that opium cultivation has witnessed a surge in recent times after the
State was carved out from Bihar in November 2000.

Although opium cultivation is banned, it assures farmers the quickest
returns. Experts point out that opium grows in only 100 days, a kilogram
of opium fetching up to Rs 25,000 to a farmer. Incidentally, a kilogram of
opium can be grown in a mere 1000 sq ft land. The demand too is perpetual
since the crop is banned,

"The cause of surge in opium cultivation is that it is changing the lives
of the farmers as they are getting hefty returns. This in turn is helping
the Maoists generate revenue for subversive activities" said a police
official.

Jharkhand's farmers are easily lured into the business because the land is
not fertile and the State faces a drought almost every year. The farmers
get their share from the opium business while Maoists directly who smuggle
it to the drug peddlers are paid hefty amounts. Police officials point out
that opium cultivation has witnessed a surge in recent times after the
State was carved out from Bihar in November 2000.

Although opium cultivation is banned, it assures farmers the quickest
returns. Experts point out that opium grows in only 100 days, a kilogram
of opium fetching up to Rs 25,000 to a farmer. Incidentally, a kilogram of
opium can be grown in a mere 1000 sq ft land. The demand too is perpetual
since the crop is banned,

"The cause of surge in opium cultivation is that it is changing the lives
of the farmers as they are getting hefty returns. This in turn is helping
the Maoists generate revenue for subversive activities" said a police
official.

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Supreme court issues notices to West Bengal Government

The Communists have gotten enmeshed in yet another corruption scandal.

SC notices on Salt Lake plots (The Statesman, Jan 24, 2006)

SC notices on Salt Lake plots

NEW DELHI, Jan. 23. — The Supreme Court today issued notices to the West Bengal government and chief minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on a PIL alleging that plots in Salt Lake City had been allotted by flouting rules since 1977.
A Bench headed by Justice Ruma Pal also issued notices to former chief minister Mr Jyoti Basu and his son Chandan on the allegation that in 1977-78, the chief minister’s discretionary quota was created by unlawful and confidential executive orders without even informing the Cabinet. The PIL, filed by a resident of Bengal Mr Joydeep Mukherjee, also named urban development minister Mr Asok Bhattacharya and finance minister Mr Asim Dasgupta as respondents. The petitioner has contended that in 1985 the state government started carving out new residential plots from the land earmarked for civic amenities, ecological balance etc in violation of the approved master plan. The PIL charged the government had illegally dissolved the Salt Lake Advisory Committee and amended the Acts of 1975 and 1976 in 1985 and by the new West Bengal Government Township (Extension of Civil Amenities Amendment) Act, 1985, tried to give legal validity to the allotments with retrospective effect. — PTI

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The Communist Parivar worth Rs. 4000 crores

The Maoist Communist publication "People's March" has an interesting article blasting CPI(M). While sectarian clashes among Communists is nothing new, what sets this article apart is the section on CPI(M)'s assets in Kerala. For those reading this blog from outside India : 10 million = 1 crore.

http://www.peoplesmarch.com/archives/2005/june2k5/cpm.htm

Excerpt:

Kerala Inc. & CPM Mafia

The recent CPM State Conference re-elected the same leadership by rejecting the opposition from the hardliners led by V.S.-Achuthanandan and the CITU. It was clear that the winners had the backing of the top leadership as these elements have been ridi-culed as the "materialist boys" and have been charged with pursing a "revisionist course", compromises with foreign capital and "corrupt and bourgeois life-styles".

In Kerala the CPM now functions like a business empire with the Pinarayi faction having ousted the old guard. It is estimated that the CPM’s extended parivar is worth Rs.4,000 crores and growing. Party leaders squabble over foreign junkets and plum posts. The empire stretches from Amusement Parks, to super-specialty hospitals, mega-supermarkets, IT parks, to TV Channels and foreign-funded rubber cooperatives. No party in Kerala owns as much property and land as the CPM.

What has shocked many is the party’s forays into the promotion of imperialist culture through the setting up of amusement parks and the floating of the new outfit The Malabar Pleasures Private Limited. Funds for these outfits have been even mobilized from liquor barons and bootleggers. One Chennai based liquor baron bought Rs.25 lakhs of shares in the TV channel and so has the bootlegger Manichan, who is now in jail responsible for the death of 36 for the hooch supplied by him. It is the general secretary of the party, Pinarayi Vijayan, who pushed this Kairali TV Channel five years ago!!

The ‘party of the working class’ will soon add another feather in its cap of business achievements — a water theme park. The amusement park at Parassinikad-avu in Kannur district, being developed by the Chennai-based Real Fun Consultants, will cost Rs 25 crore. The business venture is promoted by Malabar Pleasures Private Limited, a company fully owned by Malabar Tourism Development Co-Operative Ltd, the society formed by the CPM when EK Nayanar was the chief minister.

It was E.Narayanan who first set up the rubber cooperative in 1997 which now has annual sales of over Rs.450 crores. In a plan of massive expansion the coop. is seeking Rs.1,300 crores, mostly from foreign financial institutions. The CPM has also floated the Tellicherry Medical Foundation which has set up a network of hospitals and is now planning a super-specialty hospital. They are also planning a mega-super-market, along the lines of what exists in the West. So successful has been its business empire that it now plans to set up IT Parks in all districts of Kerala.

No doubt with the full possibilities of it coming to power in the coming year it predicts vast expansion of its business empire. Already the bulk of the enormous factional fights in the Kerala CPM is over the spoils of office; now to this is being added the battles for control of these vast funds. For much of the rhetoric at the party Congress CPM bosses are more involved into big business and the high flying alliances are part of the games of the ruling classes.

Said old time CPM member, Berlin Kunjanandan Nair "Pinarayi Vijayan, the present party secretary, is a son of a poor toddy (local liquor) tapper. After reaching the top post, he became an adopted son of the corporate mafias. The party secretary post has been reduced to that of a CEO of a private company".

All this has gone on with the full backing of the central leadership. What then can be expected from such a party? All those intellectuals that consider the CPM as progressive need to think again, unless of course they hope to get in return some gains in their professions and climb the ladder in the academic world.

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Maoists blow up forest guest house in Purulia

The battle betweem comrades took its toll on a government guest house as Maoist communists responded to Com. Biman Bose's open challenge to the Maoists.

Maoists blow up forest guest house in Purulia (The Statesman, January 24 2006 )

Maoists blow up forest guest house in Purulia

Statesman News Service
PURULIA, Jan. 23. — Maoists blew up a state forest department guest house at Duarsini in Bandwan late last night, after asking the caretaker and other staff to vacate it, district police said here today. Sources said no one was injured in the blast that was triggered by explosives.
The Naxalites had ordered the four caretakers at the cottage to leave before they set off the explosion. Additional forces were rushed to the village immediately after news of the blast reached Bandwan police station. The SP, Purulia, Mr R Siva Kumar also left for an inspection of the blast site.
A red alert has been sounded across Purulia district after last night’s blast, as was done after Maoists had killed local CPI-M leader Rabindra Nath Kar and his wife during a pre-dawn raid on their house on 1 January at Pundar village in Bandwan.
Only yesterday, the Maoists had given a call for a bandh on and boycott of the Republic Day in the district. They had also put up posters — in Bengali, Hindi and English — demanding the immediate release of one of their senior leaders, Mr Sachin Roy, who was arrested from Hyderabad last week.
Intelligence sources said it was only natural for the Maoists to step up the attack on the government and CPI-M leaders in the district after Mr Biman Bose, CPI-M Politburo member, challenged the extremists at an open rally recently.
Senior party leaders of the district have already been advised not to venture out alone after sundown for fear of Maoist attacks on them.

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Shradhanjali

NETAJI SUBHASH CHANDRA BOSE

BORN : Jan 23, 1897

JAI HIND

Indian Communists stand up for their comrades in Nepal

The Indian Communists are standing up for their Nepalese counterparts, they are protesting the arrest of Communist leaders calling it "oppression". Nepal is facing a brutal Maoist insurgency.

The Hindu Jan 21, 2006

CPI (M) condemns `repression' in Nepal

NEW DELHI: The CPI (M) has condemned what it called the renewed `repression' by the King's regime in Nepal.

In a statement on Friday, on the eve of a mass rally called by the seven-party front for the restoration of democracy in Nepal, the CPI (M) Polit Bureau said: "There is no doubt whatsoever that the King will not allow any democratic political activities. The CPI (M) is confident that the people of Nepal will respond in a big way to the call for ending the autocratic regime."

It pointed to the arrest of leaders of various political parties and the house arrest of the general secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), Madhav Kumar Nepal and president of the Nepali Congress, G. P. Koirala.

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CPI(M) demands action against election observer

The Communist leaders affiliated to the CPM appear to be very upset with the "connections" of certain EC observers with the opposition and they have urged the CEC to take action.

http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=226999&cat=India

CPI(M) demands action against election observer

The CPI(M) today urged Chief Election Commissioner B B Tandon to take action against the central observers allegedly having ''connections'' with the opposition parties and ''misusing their posts''.

Speaking to the mediapersons, CPI(M) state secretary Anil Biswas said, ''We have earlier complained that some central observers have links with the opposition parties. It was proved when observer for Howrah district N B Dhal instructed the Sankrail BDO, on a letter-head of Mr Arup Roy, district president of Trinamool Congress, to remove names of false voters and Bangladeshis from part one of the electoral rolls.'' ''The EC and the observer have their own letter-heads. So why did Mr Dhal use another political party's letter-head?'' Mr Biswas questioned.

''We have sent a letter to the CEC and urged him to take action against Mr Dhal,'' he added.

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Incompetence of the police force

Revelations by J.K. Sinha, director general CRPF suggests that the Jehanabad police has been infiltrated by Maoist communists or it is hoplessly incompetent.

Bihar cops alerted on Jehanabad jailbreak: CRPF chief (Newindpress.com)

Bihar cops alerted on Jehanabad jailbreak: CRPF chief
Sunday January 22 2006 00:00 IST

IANS

NEW DELHI: Two months after the Jehanabad jailbreak incident when 340 inmates escaped from the prison, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) on Saturday said that the Bihar Police had prior information about the attack, but failed to take timely action.

"They (Bihar Police) had information six hours before the Maoist onslaught started in the evening, but failed to thwart the attack," said J.K. Sinha, director general CRPF, at a media briefing following the inspection of the Republic Day parade preparations.

Sinha added that after the jailbreak on Nov 13 too, the Bihar Police could not gather intelligence about the whereabouts of the Maoists and therefore the counter operations by the CRPF and the elite National Security Guards (NSG) did not produce the desired result.

"We do not have our own intelligence units for inputs about Maoists and the Bihar Police failed to provide us with the requisite assistance to carry out the operations," he added.

After the Jehanabad incident, "We have asked the state governments to regularly use a part of their force for anti-Maoist operations," said Sinha.

Two new training institutions have been started which would specialise in training personnel in anti-Maoist operations. One of these is in Himachal Pradesh, while the second is in Madhya Pradesh, he said.

Sinha said these institutions have already trained 11 companies of the force in counter-Maoist operations and are training the forces further.

Around 3,000 men from Jammu and Kashmir would also be recruited and used extensively in the counter insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir, Sinha added.

Tags: MAOISTS

• MAOISTS
• NAXALS
• COMMUNIST-CRIMES

Communists call for Republic day boycott

The Maoist communists have called for a boycott of the Republic day celebrations.
Maoists call for R-Day boycott (The Statesman, Jan 23, 2006)

Maoists call for R-Day boycott

Purulia, Jan. 22. — Maoists today called for boycotting Republic Day programmes in Purulia district of West Bengal and for observing a bandh on that day.
Several Maoist posters, pasted on walls of houses and shops, were seized by the police from Pundar in Jeypore area, district SP Mr Rangasway Shivkumar told reporters here. The reason for boycotting Republic Day programmes was not given by the Maoists, police said.
Maoists active in Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapur districts of the state had been giving a call for boycott of R-day programmes for a few years now. Pundar is near Bandwan where the Maoists brutally killed CPI-M leader Rabindranath Kar and his wife during a pre-dawn raid on their house on 1 January.
The SP said a red alert was already sounded in the district and paramilitary forces were posted along Purulia’s common border with West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand.
Besides, security in the entire district was beefed up further, he said. Maoist rebels were believed to be using the corridor between Purulia and West Singhbhum as their escape route after carrying out operations inside West Bengal.

Tags: MAOISTS

• MAOISTS

Communists arrested for forging documents

The communists connection to the forgery of documents has been exposed with the police arresting CPM members.

CPM members held for fake documents racket
Express News Service

Kolkata, January 19: The CPM connection in respect of the splurge of fake voter identity cards and ration cards have been exposed as the police today busted one such racket at Bongaon in North 24 -Parganas. Four people were arrested, two of whom, Parimal Biswas and Ravi Biswas, are members of the ruling party.

Apart from forging EPICs and ration cards, the racket was also engaged in manufacturing fake birth certificates and SC and ST certificates.

As promised by state secretary Anil Biswas, both Parimal Biswas and Ravi Biswas had been expelled by the party.

Parimal Biswas who was arrested from his home last night, was a resident of Chaitigram under Bongaon Police Station. He divulged the names of his accomplices Ravi Biswas, Jaydeb Sana, Ujjal Roy and Tanmay Mandal to the police. Pravin Kumar, SP, North 24-Parganas, said: “We rounded up the culprits following a tip-off. We have already sealed two printers.” Kapil Ghosh, local committee member of Chaitigram, said that Biswas belonged to the CPI(M) and the party would definitely look into the charges. “The party will conduct an enquiry and if the allegations are true, then Biswas will be expelled from the party.”

Jyotipriya Mallik, a Trinamool MLA from Gaighata, said, “We had filed a written complaint to the authorities and even notified the EC. Only after the arrival of the observers did the authorities take steps. This proves the CPM’s complicity.” Mamata Banerjee accused the CPM of resorting to all kinds of malpractices to win elections.

Tags: CPM COMMUNIST-CRIMES BENGAL-ELECTIONS

• CPM
• COMMUNIST-CRIMES
• BENGAL-ELECTIONS

10,000 victims of CPM's terror machine

The Statesman (Jan 20 2006) has an article on the victims of Communist terror who will not be able to vote in the coming elections.

Homeless & voteless... from Khanakul to Kolkata

Statesman News Service
KOLKATA, Jan. 19. — Names on electoral rolls, ration cards and voters’ identity cards in place notwithstanding, nearly 10,000-odd men and women living in the city cannot vote.
Trinamul Congress supporters all, they dare not step into the polling booths at Goghat, Khanakul, Sabang and Pingla, to name a few, after having fled to the concrete jungle, leaving behind the places of their births in the fear for their lives.
Even as Election Commission observers are scouring the state in search of false voters, these voters have been de facto disenfranchised by terror. And they have little hope of casting their ballots this time, in spite of the EC team.
The spectre of violence arose since 2000 after Trinamul Congress emerged triumphant in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation election, Ashok Chongdar, an erstwhile resident of Kotalpur Assembly segment in Bankura, told The Statesman here. He ought to know as he had himself fled to this city with his wife and children in September, 2000.
“There is no possibility of my name and that of my wife being deleted from the voters’ list,” he said. “The votes that would be cast in our names are actually bonus votes for the CPI-M,” he added ruefully.
Not having voted since 1998, Mongleshwar Mallik of Garbeta Assembly segment still yearns to cast his ballot, even if for once. His ration card, voters’ identity card and all other relevant documents are still at his Chhoto Angaria home where he cannot dare return.
Like Chongdar and Mallik, Mussaraf Khan of Baital and Abdur Rahaman Mandal of Garbeta have similar stories to tell. But they are all tragic ones and their frustration at being disenfranchised is palpable, even amidst their daily struggle to make two ends meet in this metropolis.
“These people are part of a drifting voters’ population whose existence has been brought to the EC’s notice,” said Mr Madan Mitra, president of Trinamul Congress’ youth wing.
The EC has been asked to ensure that besides weeding out bogus voters, genuine voters are also allowed to cast their votes, he added.

Tags: CPM COMMUNIST-CRIMES BENGAL-ELECTIONS

• CPM
• COMMUNIST-CRIMES
• BENGAL-ELECTIONS

Islamists enter the fray

The Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, an Islamist organization, has announced that it is trying to form a third front opposed to both the Communists and Trinamool and Congress. They appear to especially concerned about the Madrasas near the Bangladesh border.

The Jamiat, meanwhile, demonstrated and organised a public meeting today.

The organisation alleged that the security agencies are harassing madrasa students in the districts, in the name of security.

“It has become a regular feature. Students at madrasas, especially in the districts across the Bangladesh border, are questioned routinely. We demand that the government looks into the matter,” Chowdhury said.

Given that close to a quarter of the population in Bengal is Muslim, there is scope for the growth of Islamic parties and over time we might see a section of the Muslim vote bank shifting its loyalty to parties with an Islamic agenda.

Tags: BENGAL-ELECTIONS

• BENGAL-ELECTIONS

Election Updates

The election commission has announced that elections in Bengal will not be delayed so we might not see a "mass uprising" of the comrades. The Statesman writes about the tension in Alimmuddin Street till the Election Commission's final decision was announced.

CPI-M top guns today accused the Congress of trying to postpone the Assembly election in West Bengal with a plan to hold it under President’s rule.
Seemingly apprehensive about such a possibility, CPI-M state secretary Mr Anil Biswas insisted on the completion of the multi-phased poll in the state latest by 15 or 17 May, allowing the time needed for counting of votes as well as the constitution of a new Assembly and the formation of a government before the term of the present House ends on 11 June.
Defending his yesterday’s threat of a “mass upsurge” in the state in the event of a postponement of the state poll as “a conscious and deliberate call,” Mr Biswas cautioned the EC that “the history of 1969 would be repeated” if the Assembly poll is not held by 15 or 17 May. “I did not call for civil war but organised mass action. There is nothing unconstitutional about it,” he maintained.
Tension was evident at the party state headquarters this evening as Mr Biswas awaited the Election Commission’s decision following the submission of reports by the 19 EC observers for West Bengal.
As soon as reports poured in from Delhi that the CEC, Mr BB Tandon, would neither send a fresh batch of observers, at least for now, nor defer the deadline for disposal of allegations regarding voters’ list, the tension eased off.
The CEC only ordered strong action against “negligent” officials and compliance with EC’s orders on revision of voters’ list by 31 January.
“We are highly satisfied and appreciate the EC’s directives. Action must be taken against erring officers,” said a relieved Mr Biswas.
Yesterday, he had trained his guns against the EC for sending observers to scrutinise the allegations over fake voters and blasted the latter for “exceeding its brief”. But today, Mr Biswas toned down his tirade against the poll panel. “My words were meant not for the EC but for other forces who are trying to postpone the poll,’’ Mr Biswas said.
“Some Congress leaders are trying to postpone the poll on the ground of flawed voters’ list. Congress is a old hat in hatching such conspiracies. It’s not possible to prepare a completely accurate electoral roll as some voters may die a natural death on the day of the poll,’’ Mr Biswas quipped and added: “Hopefully, the Centre has learnt a lesson from the dissolution of the Bihar Assembly.” Mr Biswas pointed out that the Supreme Court’s verdict on the dissolution of Bihar Assembly was due shortly.
The CPI-M general secretary, Mr Prakash Karat, who was in the city today, echoed Mr Biswas and said: “I don’t think the Centre is planning something arbitrary... We’ll take up the issue if they go beyond the prescribed norms.’’

Tags: CPM BENGAL-ELECTIONS

• CPM
• BENGAL-ELECTIONS

Bengal Elections, updates

The CPM has threatened a mass uprising if elections in West Bengal are held under Presidents rule. or if the polls are postponed for "flimsy reasons". Given the sorry state of the electoral rolls in Bengal the election commission might be forced recreate the voters list, this might lead to a delay in elections, so a "mass uprising" is on the cards.

Udayan Namboodiri argues that a Presidents rule might not be a bad deal for CPI(M), with their fellow Communists of the Maoist persuation targetting them in certain districts.

Excerpt:

Whenever assembly elections in West Bengal are held, it better be under President's rule. Otherwise, the ruling CPI (M), will be unable to put up candidates in at least three districts - Purulia, Bankura and West Medinipur - for fear of Maoists massacring their candidates.



"We will punish anybody given a ticket by the CPI (M)," declared a statement issued by an unidentified Maoist leader now in circulation in the three districts. "The people are with us. They have had enough of the terror perpetrated by the Marxists, their exploitation and corruption. We will not permit even campaigning to take place. However, we will not stand in the way if other parties want to contest".

The Statesman reports that the election commission has found gross anomalies in the system of issuing ration cards in the Malda district.
Excerpt:

The Election Commission observer for Malda, Mr D Singh, has detected gross anomalies in the system of issuing ration cards in the Malda district, officials today informed, after his departure.
The official said that Mr Singh specifically drew the attention of the concerned officials towards the abnormal ratio between people issuing ration cards and the actual population, which was comparatively very low.
Mr Singh had also noted that the rate of voter’s enrolment in the electoral list is 40 to 50 per cent, whereas, the percentage of ration card holders is as high as 90 to 95 per cent in some areas of the district, such as Kaliachak.
The EC observer personally examined the ration card records starting from the year 2000-01 to 2005, and also checked the average rate of ration cards issued in previous years after comparing it with the rate of population recorded in the last three census in the Malda district.
Officials inform that yesterday, he sought all reports on the food supplies department and studied it minutely till the last minute of his departure.
Personally visiting some blocks close to the Bangladesh border dominated by both the Hindus and the Muslims, the observer also inquired the district officials about the ration card and electoral photo identity cards held by Bangladeshi nationals residing in the border areas.
“Inspite of the lack of specific information, the EC observer was confident that a good number of ration and EPIC cards were owned by the Bangladeshi nationals residing in the border areas. The observer strongly suspected that it was particularly due to this reason why there was a major difference between the ration or EPIC card holders and the actual population”, a senior district official said.
As such, ration cards are now being verified as per the instructions from the Observer, sources said. State officials fear that if the observer reports it to the EC recommending deletion of Bangladeshi nationals from the electoral list, it will prove really difficult to identify the persons as they managed to get the ration card made in their names by illegal means.
On the other hand, a group of political leaders are demanding that pending applications for fresh ration cards including neo-citizens by birth should be released immediately.
The LF convener and the district CPI-M district secretary had submitted a deputation to the EC observer demanding assurance of EPIC for all and revision of ration cards issued by the district authorities.
“Many people inspite of being Indian citizens do not possess a ration card. At the same time, holders of fake ration cards are availing all the benefits”, said Mr Jiban Moitra, district secretary of the district LF.

Tags:CPM MAOISTS BENGAL-ELECTIONS

• CPM
• MAOISTS
• BENGAL-ELECTIONS

Forward bloc denies link with Imam

[Picture from Cybernoon]

Maulana Ghulam Hussain Yahya, an Imam from Mumbai has been arrested for alleged links with the Lashkar-E-Toiba (see 1 , 2 and 3 ). Mr. Yahya is in the dock for sheltering terrorists and delivering huge amounts of money to them.

It turns out that Yahya is very close to Kamaluddin Shams, a former minister and a senior leader of Forward Bloc (a constituent of the Communist led Left Front in Bengal). His brother, Ilyas Ahmed, is also a minor leader in the party.

Forward Bloc is trying to shield itself from the fallout -- Iliyas Ahmed has been issued a show cause notice for mentioning Yahya's close relationship with Shams to the media. It appears that Shams had issued a character certificate to the Maulana. It is not the first time that senior leaders of the Left Front have been linked with criminals.

Tags:LEFT-FRONT JIHAD

• LEFT-FRONT
• JIHAD

A good Maoist

A top Maoist leader, Mahendra Bhuinya, has absconded with two crore rupees and a few kilograms of gold.

Thank you Mr. Bhuinya, the Maoists will have less money for slaughtering innocents.

Top Maoist disappears with group funds (The Statesman, Jan 18, 2006))

Dipankar Bose in Ranchi
Jan. 17. — A senior Maoist leader of Jharkhand, Mr Mahendra Bhuinya, has disappeared, allegedly with more than Rs 2 crore in cash and two kilograms of gold from the extremists’ high security funds. The report of Mr Bhuinya’s disappearance that was sent by “reliable sources” to the state police headquarters sent the police brass into a scurry to trace the whereabouts of the extremist leader.
According to senior police officers, the Maoist extremists are facing acute shortage of funds due to the theft carried out by Mr Bhuinya. Soon after the leader’s disappearance came to light, the extremists dispatched special batches of cadres to Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune to trace his whereabouts.
Mr Bhuinya, alias Bipin, is the Jharkhand chief of the People’s Liberation Guerilla Army (PLGA), the combat wing of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). “The command structure of the CPI (Maoist) has been badly hit as the leaders have no credible answers with them to defend Bipin’s acts in front of the cadres,” said a senior state police officer.
Bipin had also been at the center of an earlier controversy. A few days ago, he was sternly warned after there were allegations that he was behind the misappropriation of party funds in the jungles of Dumria-Chattarpur in the Palamu district. Maoists sources had informed the police that Bipin had been asked to deposit the missing amount in the party fund very quickly. The party had also decided to shift him from Jharkhand to the Sonebhadra district in Uttar Pradesh, as a disciplinary action. Soon after this, Mr Mahendra Bhuinya disappeared along with more than two crore rupees collected by the cadres as levies and two kilograms of gold.
“Mahendra joined the organisation back in 1987-88 as an ordinary cadremember but gradually rose high in the party’s hierarchy. Sometime in the mid-’90s, apart from his duties as the chief of the PLGA, he was entrusted with the high profile job of the party’s treasurer. Since then, all the funds collected as levies and by other arm twisting methods used to come directly to him. It is with this accumulated money that Mr Mahendra fled along with his family members, leaving behind his comrades in an acute cash-strapped situation,” the officer added.
Reports have also suggested that Bipin has not only fled with the cash and valuables but that he has also taken some important classified documents and maps of the PLGA to which he alone had access. According to the extremist leaders, when senior leaders of the party go missing, they always prefer to live in the highly populated metro cities to camouflage their identities. As a result, special batches have been sent in to track Bipin and his family members along with the money and valuables. The state police have also increased their efforts to nab the high profile leader of the Maoist extremists.

Tags:MAOISTS

• MAOISTS

CPI(M) linked with Maoist attacks in Nepal

A former chief of the Nepali Army has alleged that CPI(M) is linked to Maoist attacks in Nepal.

'India to blame for Maoist attacks in Nepal' (The Times of India, January 17, 2006)
Excerpt:

A former chief of Nepal's army and advisor of King Gyanendra has blamed Indian opposition parties for the recent Maoist attacks in Kathmandu resulting in the death of 12 policemen.

Gen Sachit Shumshere JB Rana, who was chief of the Royal Nepalese Army from 1988 to 1991, said Saturday's attacks on two police posts in Kathmandu were due to the understanding reached between the militants and the opposition parties in New Delhi.

In October last year, the Maoists and leaders of opposition parties reportedly met in New Delhi to decide a joint strategy to counter the king.

Rana said the security situation in Nepal had improved after King Gyanendra seized power with the help of the army last year.

"The attacks could take place because of the Dilli daur (run to Delhi)," Rana said in Kathmandu on Tuesday, defending the indefinite curfew and ban on demonstrations imposed by the government on Monday night.

The opposition party being mentioned here is the CPI(M) and the Dilli daur refers to the Karat - Bhattari meeting.

Sandeep has a post covering the Prakash Karat - Baburam Bhattarai meet in depth.

Tags:CPM MAOISTS COMINTERN COMMUNIST-CRIMES

• CPM
• MAOISTS
• COMINTERN
• COMMUNIST-CRIMES

Any news about the abducted tribals?

Yesterday some newspapers had a story about 40 tribals being abducted by Maoists. I didn't notice any newspaper covering this story today.
If anybody has a link please post it in the comments section.

Tags:MAOISTS NAXALS COMMUNIST-CRIMES

• MAOISTS
• NAXALS
• COMMUNIST-CRIMES

News from the Communist fatherland

It is well known that CPI(M) considers itself as the local branch of the Chinese Communist party, rather THE Communist Party. The Indian Communists look upto their Chinese counterparts as a child looks upon his father, the main sentiment of our local comrades is that of adulation.

So let us have a look at the Communists' fatherland.

From NYTIMES
Excerpt:

A week of protests by villagers in China's southern industrial heartland over government land seizures exploded into violence over the weekend, as thousands of police officers brandishing automatic weapons and electric stun batons moved to suppress the demonstrations, residents of the village said Monday.

The residents of the village, Panlong, in Guangdong Province, said that as many as 60 people were wounded and that at least one person, a 13-year-old girl, was killed by security forces. The police denied any responsibility, saying the girl died of a heart attack.

...

The clash in Panlong was the second time in just over a month in which large numbers of Chinese security forces, including paramilitary troops, were deployed to put down a local demonstration. The earlier protest, 240 miles north in the village of Dongzhou on Dec. 6 over the construction of a power plant, was one of thousands recently in rural China over the environment and land use, with little relief available through the country's legal system.

A couple of weeks earlier the Communists had slaughtered 30 people in Donzhou. The Communists are busy solving the root causes of such disturbances in a typically Communist way -- by stopping news organizations from covering such events.

In December, in the protest in Dongzhou, residents say as many as 30 people were killed when security forces opened fire on crowds of villagers demonstrating against the construction of a coal-fired power plant in their midst. The provincial authorities have acknowledged three deaths, but blamed the villagers for attacking the police. Meanwhile, Chinese authorities have restricted access to the village and have apparently ordered news organizations to sharply limit their coverage of the incident.

In Panlong, a little girl was killed. Another article in the NYTIMES tells us how

Police on Tuesday patrolled a village in southern China where a teenage girl reportedly was clubbed to death during a protest over land seizures, and Hong Kong news reports quoted villagers as saying demonstrations would continue.
...
In a rare break with their usual silence about protests, state media have denied that anyone was killed in Sanjiao or that police used violence. But numerous accounts by villagers and Hong Kong media reported the girl's death and said police attacked protesters with electric batons.

The intensity of the protests have forced the Chinese government to make some conciliatory gestures

The government tried to defuse public anger by announcing that the commander of the forces in Dongzhou had been detained, but there has been no word of any punishment for that commander or any other officials.

We end with a statistic that reflects the state of rural China

Government figures show there were 74,000 cases of rural unrest in 2004.

Mind you, the above are Communist statistics, the true figures are likely to be much worse.

Tags:COMINTERN

• COMINTERN

Communists gear up for elections

The communists have begun prepartions for the elections in earnest. A policeman known to be close to the Communists has been appointed in a key post. The Communists are clamping down on criticism: there is an unoffical ban on a serial about an Orwellian state run by an all powerful party.

State police exists only to serve party (The Pioneer reuses URL's, link might not work)

State police exists only to serve party

Udayan Namboodiri / Kolkata

"The Left Front Government has won the last six Assembly elections with your help. I am sure that the same help will be extended by you during the coming election and the Left Front will again emerge victorious. Of course, I know that I should not speak out in such a manner."

The man who said these words was no less than former Chief Minister of West Bengal Jyoti Basu. He was inaugurating the annual conference of the Non-Gazetted Police Karmachari Samity, a frontal organisation of the CPI (M) which covers all policemen up to the rank of sub-inspector in West Bengal Police.

Just two days later, Basu's successor and toast of the Left-Liberal media for his "reformist zeal", Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, attended the closing ceremony of the same conference. Though it was a closed-door session, his words leaked out to the Bengali media.

He was quoted as calling upon the last few members of the rival union, the Bengal Police Association, to join the Marxist fold. As allurement, he held out the promise of more benefits covering housing, post-retirement and insurance.

When the news item was published in a few papers, the Chief Minister did not bother to issue a rejoinder. In fact, after 28 years of unchallenged rule, the Marxist Government hardly cares to deny the worst kept secret of Bengal: the total subordination of the State's police to the ruling party. Just six months earlier, on June 19, policemen posted outside a booth in Salt Lake City on the day of the civic elections manhandled Basu's long-time aide, Joykrishna Ghosh in a case of mistaken identity. The nonagenarian, in his rage, blurted out: "Our police has hit our boys. This is unthinkable".

The blurring of the dividing line between police and party is an accepted fact of life here. The resentment of the ordinary Bengali to the failure of the most visible institution of the Indian State is captured evocatively in a TV serial now showing each evening on Zee Bangla channel.

Titled Tamashar Pare, it depicts a society totally controlled by the "party" through local committee honchos, policemen and politically powerful anti-socials. Startled by the popularity of the serial directed by Arghya Kamal Mitra, the "party" (no prizes for guessing which one) has imposed an unofficial ban on cable operators. In many parts of the State, Zee Bangla is simply not accessible between 8.30pm and 9 pm.

But TV serial or no TV serial, the Marxist establishment is taking no chances in an election year. Loyal officers are being strategically placed to ensure that the party's rigging machinery can work unhindered by extraneous intervention in the form of zealous Election Commission (EC) observers. For, after all, in election time central observers and paramilitary forces would all be under the executive control of the local police chief.

The most brazen manifestation of the Buddhadeb regime's resolve to use the police for ensuring a seventh straight term is the manner in which it has re-employed Chayan Mukherjee. This officer retired as Additional Director-General of Police (Law and Order) and spokesperson of the force on October 31, 2005. He was promptly given a six-month contract as OSD, Coordination. Nobody who knows Mukherjee's past is surprised. As a serving officer, his chief function had been to identify and engage key subordinates for lubricating the party's awesome vote-manipulation system. Now, after superannuation, he would be able to serve his political masters better.

The EC's team, which is now touring the State, is giving sound-bytes to the local media about the possibility of a "new" kind of election, whenever it is held. One promise that is more or less iterating in their statements is that the election will be staggered over at least three phases to facilitate better policing by paramilitary forces. They have also indicated that the work of collecting and assessing intelligence ahead of the elections would not be left with the local police. Earlier, the police earmarked certain booths as "sensitive" which always turned out to be peaceful ones. That helped the Marxists rig the poll better.

Tags:CPM RIGGING

• CPM
• RIGGING

40 tribals abducted by Naxalites from Abujhmad

Many newspapers are reporting that around 40 tribals have been abducted by Naxals in Chattisgarh. The Naxals accuse the tribals of having links with the police.

The Chattisgarh home minister has denied these reports.

Tags:CPM MAOISTS NAXALS

• MAOISTS
• NAXALS
• COMMUNIST-CRIMES

CPM owes a Crore to the state treasury

The Telegraph had written about the abuse of the state machinery for a CPM rally. The Telegraph has some maths and concluded that CPM owes the government over a crore of rupees for the buses alone, taking into account the fact that the State Transportation department offered the ruling party a 50% discount. The CPM also took buses forcibly from private bus owners.

Permit lies with party to deny govt a crore (The Telegraph, January 16, 2006)

The CPM owes the state government over Rs 1 crore in unpaid permit fees for the 10,000 buses it pulled off city and district routes for its January 8 rally.

Senior public vehicles department (PVD) officials said if a bus is to run outside its stipulated route, a temporary permit must be obtained by paying the transport department Rs 1,200.

A rough calculation shows that the CPM, which hired about 6,500 private and mini buses in the city and another 3,500 in the districts to ferry party supporters, owes the government Rs 1.20 crore.

Technically, it’s the bus owner who is to obtain the permit by paying the fee, but the practice is that the hirer shells out the amount in addition to the rental.

The ruling party had saved on the rentals, too, by securing a questionable 50 per cent discount on the 400 state buses it hired and by armtwisting private bus operators into lending their vehicles for a pittance.

“Nearly 10,000 buses went off their routes without informing us or obtaining the permits,” a senior PVD official said. “Nobody even bothered to apply for one.

“These buses, running with their number plates covered, could have been impounded. But the police, who never miss an opportunity to harass a bus operator with his papers in order, chose to look the other way.”

A prominent CPM leader from North 24-Parganas, who is a former State Transport Authority (STA) deputy chairman, dismissed the charge.

“Taking buses without permits for rallies is an old practice. All political parties do it,” he said. “Letting out a bus for a marriage or picnic is different from letting it out for a political programme.”

In Calcutta, the temporary permits are issued by the PVD; in the districts by the regional transport authorities.

Private bus operators, asked why they hadn’t tried to obtain the permits, said they hadn’t really rented out their buses in the first place.

“The workers belonging to the CPM took the buses away without our permission. How could we have applied for permits?” said Bengal Bus Syndicate president Swarnakamal Saha. “Everybody knows that Citu controls the bus workers. We had very little say in the matter.”

The Motor Vehicle Act says that under no circumstances can more than half the buses be pulled off any route. But 400 of 650 state buses and 6,500 of 8,500 private and mini buses had been commandeered from the city.

Tags:CPM

• CPM

Maoist Bandh in W Bengal

Red alert in W Bengal in view of the Maoist Bandh (The Hindustan Times, Jan 15, 2005)

Excerpt:

Red alert has been sounded in the border areas of West Bengal and Jharkhand and police patrolling intensified in the three South Bengal districts of Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapur in view of a 24-hour bandh called by CPI(Maoists) from 6 am on Monday.

The bandh has been called to protest the death of 12 tribals in police firing in Orissa's Kalinganagar on January 2. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha has also extended support to the bandh.

Alert has been specially been sounded in Jhalda, Bandwan, Jaipur and Barabazar areas of Purulia while security measures have been tightened in and around the district, Rangaswami Siva Kumar, Superintendent of Police, Purulia said.

In West Midnapur, police patrolling was intensified in Belpahari, Jamboni, Lalgarh, Goaltor, Garbeta, Nayagram and Gopiballbhpur police station areas, Superintendent of Police Ajay Nanda said.

Para-military personnel were combing the forests of Belpahari and Lalgarh of the district where two CPI(M) youth wing leaders were killed last Friday.

Special measures were also taken mainly in four police stations areas of Ranibandh, Raipur, Simlapal and Khatra in south Bankura, Superintendent of Police Rajiv Sinha said.

Tags:CPM MAOISTS NAXALS

• CPM
• MAOISTS
• NAXALS

Who created the Naxal Frankenstein

An interesting letter to The Statesman editor by a retired IAS officer. Naxalism, it appears, is a Frankestein created by the CPM. The Communists expected to lose the state elections in 1967 and one of their chief ideologues, Pramode Dasgupta, chalked out a strategy to destabilize the incoming Congress government. The poverty of the tribals would be exploited, they would be promised land and egged on to attack government installations. However, the Communists ended up as a part of the ruling coalition and decided to pull back. The monster refused to listen to his creator, the result : tens of thousands of dead people. What is ironic is that the movement was supposed to reflect the "land hunger" of the landless, a government survey found that most of the leaders of the Naxalbari movement were landowners.



Landing rights of the CPI-M (The Statesman, Nov 11,2005)

Landing rights of the CPI-M


Sir, — This is with reference to your editorial “Our land, their FDI” (7-8 November). I wouldn’t call the Naxalbari movement of 1967 an “agrarian uprising”. Before the assembly elections in February that year, the CPI-M had calculated that the Congress would return to power in West Bengal with a reduced majority. Land was a sensitive issue and Naxalbari was chosen as a suitable area to try out Promode Dasgupta’s theory of warfare. Kanu Sanyal, Jangal Santhal and others were asked to organise the tribals to start the disturbances immediately after the elections. However, the CPI-M’s calculations went wrong. The Congress was defeated, and the CPI-M joined the first United Front government. As part of the establishment, the party stopped supporting the movement it had encouraged. This was a letdown for Kanu and Jangal. They were unable to rein in the tribals who had been promised land. Harekrishna Konar, who had taken over as land and land revenue minister, tried to persuade Kanu to call off the movement, but failed. Sonam Wangdi, a police inspector, was killed. And a Cabinet team arrived in Siliguri to defuse the crisis.
Darjeeling’s deputy commissioner asked the SDO, Siliguri, to prepare a report on the CPI-M’s “land- hunger” theory. The report pointed out i) that most of the leaders of the Naxalbari movement were holding land; (ii) land prices had remained steady for 25 years; (iii) the population growth was at par with the state average in 1951 and 1961 census; (iv) vesting of land and distribution of vested land to the landless and the poor in Naxalbari, Kharibari and Phansidewa was better than in neighbouring areas and (v) the numbers of landless was normal. In July 1967, the then chief minister had read out parts of the report in the Assembly to rubbish the CPI-M’s theory of land-hunger.
— Yours, etc., Dipak Kumar Ghosh,
IAS (retd), now MLA,

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Rigged voters' list may delay poll

Now that K. J Rao has started to crack the whip, the Communists have stepped up their intimidatory tactics in the countryside. People who complained to the EC officials about irregularities have been intimidated by Communists.

The electoral rolls of West Bengal are a mess and the EC might be forced to postpone the elections till they verify them.

However since many villagers are too intimidated to speak out, cleaning the rolls might be impossible.

Rigged voters' list may delay poll (The Pioneer, January 16, 2006, the website reuses urls, might not work later)

The Election Commission (EC)'s special team of observers now scouring the voters' lists of West Bengal through field studies of unprecedented intensity, may well end up recommending a fresh enumeration exercise. That would imply a delay in holding the election scheduled for May because door-to-door compilation of names followed by verification is a time-consuming exercise.

The team, which landed here on January 8, was supposed to have completed its work in a week and submitted a report by January 18. But, owing to the large-scale discrepancies detected, the 17-member team has been forced to extend its stay in the State till January 24. The observers - one for each district - have been working round-the-clock in the business of verifying names and checking out complaints received from different political parties and NGOs about bogus voters and Bangladeshis.

From the statements already made by the EC observers to the regional media and their body language, one thing is clear: The desperate conditions prevailing in West Bengal demands a desperate solution. When, for instance, KJ Rao, the hero of Bihar, saw for himself the booth-wise results of the Chakdah Assembly segment in the 2004 Parliamentary election and, before that the 2002 Parliamentary by-election, his eyes literally popped out. In many booths, the CPI (M)'s candidate had "won" all the votes without losing even one to the combined Opposition.

"How is this possible?" he said out aloud. "This means that even the agents of the Opposition parties could not vote". The Marxist candidate had "polled" up to 1,100 votes in most booths over a 540-minute period - something unheard of anywhere in India. In just 35 booths under one Assembly segment of the wider Nabadwip constituency, he had secured a lead of 25, 246 votes. When Rao went to the adjoining Haringhata segment, he was stunned by what he saw. The Marxist had "captured" 25, 216 of the 28,334 votes "polled" in an equal number of booths.

Only one thing explains this. Large scale booth capturing marked by forced absence of genuine voters and zealous participation in the rigging process by the administration. Wherever Rao went, he heard people complaining how they had been "persuaded" to stay in their homes on the day of the election. One villager told this correspondent: "When we see the administration colluding with the ruling party, all our hopes vanish. Why should I die for the right to vote?"

Fear is the key in West Bengal. In Kholadighorui village under Thupsura block of Hooghly district, the people who poured their hearts out to another EC observer, N Shaivasalam, were attacked on the night of January 11 by CPI (M) cadre. One Akram Midda, who had told the observer that somebody else had been casting his vote for the past nine years, was made special target. He was beaten up and his hut damaged.

The news of the incident has spread all over the State. In many places, the EC's teams are now finding it difficult to get people to talk to them. Though the CPI (M) officially maintains its willingness to cooperate with the EC - even conceded the existence of "bogus" voters - the Opposition is not conceded. Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee told The Pioneer: "The EC has never worked so sincerely in any State except Jammu and Kashmir and Bihar. They are now seeing for themselves the farcical nature of Bengal's democracy".

The fear factor undermines even the enumeration process. Everybody in Bengal knows that as long as State Government officials are deployed to write the lists there can be no end to the fiction. The Opposition's workers may also be terrorised into submission. Objection forms filed by individuals and parties end up in the trash bins because the BDOs and SDOs are all with the ruling party. Under such abnormal conditions, the redrafting of a list of some 40 million voters using non-State Government employees may take up to six months.

Since the term of the present State Assembly expires mid-May, the political parties here are expecting a spell of President's rule. While the EC's observers are tight-lipped about the possibility, the huge surge of expectation that their good work has generated in the population stands to be nullified if such an eventuality is not forced. Rao, who left his work mid-way to attend a family function in Chennai on January 13, said he would return to his allotted district, Nadia, for more spot inspections. "I will not speculate on what my final recommendation would be", he told this correspondent.

Still, the EC is understood to be mulling over several novel steps to defeat the CPI (M)-administration nexus which always results in widespread rigging and awesome "majorities" to the Left Front. These include:

* Staggering the West Bengal election: holding it in three or four phases ;

* Ensuring that the Presiding Officer in each booth is an outsider to the State in keeping with the recommendation made by the Special Observer for the 2004 election, Afzal Amanullah, that a "Bengali speaking" official from a neighbouring State be brought in;

* Deploying ex-servicemen living in West Bengal and Central Government staff to work under the Presiding Officers ;

* Barring State police personnel from poll duty through large-scale import of central paramilitary forces ;

* Doing away with the age-old practice of keeping the Central forces and polling officials under the administrative control of the State Government's SDOs and BDOs.

In short, a "counter-revolution" may be on the cards to intercept the Left Front's "revolutionary" rigging machinery.

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Naxalites kill BRO engineer in Nagpur

Naxals strongly resist devolpment activities in the areas they dominate. They are afraid that development and the changes it brings might lead to them losing influence, so it is not unusual to see Naxals blow up railway tracks and blocking the construction of roads.

Naxalites kill BRO engineer in Nagpur( The Hindustan Times)

Press Trust of India
Nagpur, January 15, 2006
A group of Naxalites killed an engineer from Border Road Organisation (BRO) and beat up one overseer near Jimmalgatta in Gadhchiroli district, police said on Sunday.

The Naxalites 32-35 in number stormed the BRO camp in Jimmalgatta on Saturday night and dragged out engineer M Ganesh (37) and beat him up with sticks, killing him on the spot, police said.

The extremists later beat up overseer Lala Swarup and looted cash from the camp, police said adding the Naxalites also burnt official records.

The BRO was engaged in laying road network in the Naxal-infected area of Gadhchiroli district.

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Economic stagnation in Bengal

An interesting article by Udayan Namboodiri. Lots of statistics about the economic stagnation in Bengal under Communist rule.

State in turmoil (The Pioneer, November 11, 2005)

This week's Thinkpad is about a rare kind of Chief Minister who is loved by the very people who should hate him. On the other hand, the men and women who surround him would like to see his back.But they are willing to strike but afraid to wound. West Bengal's Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who completed five years in office last Sunday, is the toast of the national chatteratti - yesterday's "class enemy" - for openly denying his links with Marxist dogma. To the business elite, he is the antithesis of Prakash Karat, the CPI(M)'s general secretary, who still swears by the Red Book.

While Karat represents old-world communist obstructionism, Buddhadeb is cheered on as he demolishes precisely those impediments which the Left erects to trip the Manmohan Singh government. Karat is one-dimensional, obstinate and lives in a time warp. Buddhadeb is like a whiff of fresh air in the dank world of Indian Communism.

But, in his home state, Buddhadeb has to live with more than one Karat. His predecessor, Jyoti Basu, who he upstaged in a silent coup in November 2000, is still licking his wounds. The peasants, trade unionists, teachers and government clerks who made up the rungs of the ladder which helped the CPI(M) and its ilk rise to power in the 1960s, are now left high and dry by policies borrowed from Deng Xiaopeng's China. Buddhadeb makes no secret of his love for foreign investment, whatever the source, and takes the ideological combat right to the Politburo every time eyebrows are raised.

To millions of people who live by the state's single-biggest employer, agriculture, Buddhadeb is an object of hate today. He is accused of having sold out their interests by encouraging anybody who promises to bring "investment" to grab their lands. That's after Marxist policies have ruined their prospects of a better life by promoting a party-backed class of agricultural middlemen who kept them mired in poverty and debt for three decades. The workers, whether in the huge industrial wasteland that makes up today's Bengal or in the hundreds of sweatshops still limping along, have stopped dreaming of the proletariat's paradise. Buddhadeb wants to strip them of the right to strike and offer gherao.

Many of his admirers liken Buddhadeb's predicament to that of Mikhail Gorbachev who was hated by his own comrades but feted outside the Soviet Union for carrying out glasnost and perestroika. But the analogy lacks basis. For, Buddhadeb lacks two fundamental principles that Gorbachev lived by - courage and honesty. Ordinary Soviet subjects admired him for his willingness to die for his commitments. That is why they came out on the streets of Moscow to dare the tanks on August 19, 1991. In contrast, Buddhadeb lives by the forked tongue. The Bengali Communist survives by playing comrade against comrade. He owes his personal power to remnants of the Pramode Dasgupta faction and uses them against Jyoti Basu who, ironically represented Communist reform in an earlier age. He is mortally afraid of losing elections which explains the brazen rigging resorted to by the CPI(M) to keep itself in power since 2000.

Actually, he has nothing but hype to offer. Under Buddhadeb, West Bengal has become one of the poorest states of India. There are 70 lakh people registered with its employment exchanges, a figure he refuses to acknowledge. Over 31 per cent of the rural poor live under the poverty line (against the national average of 27 per cent: NSSO-2000), yet Buddhadeb has the gall to claim that West Bengal is a model of success in "alternative development". The average per capital rural expenditure in West Bengal is the sixth lowest in the country.

According to the findings of the 2001 Census, only 13 per cent of rural households owned TV sets against the all-India figure of 19 per cent. Whereas 41 per cent of Indians live in pucca houses, in Bengal only 25 per cent of the people enjoy this basic amenity. A mere 20 per cent of the state's rural households have electricity in contrast to the national average of 43.5 per cent. In terms of expenditure and ownership of basic assets,West Bengal, which once led the country in terms of economic indicators, have only Orissa, Bihar and Assam for company. In July 2004, a NSSO survey depicted West Bengal as India's "hungriest state". In the supposed socialist paradise, 17.4 per cent of rural households are underfed for one to three months of the year and 2.4 per cent are underfed for ten months.

Yet, Buddhadeb has had one significant success. He has outclassed all politicians of the country in the game of deception. Manmohan Singh, on a visit to Kolkata on January 8 this year, declared him as "best chief minister". To impress the international investment community, the Marxists have been claiming since 1993-94 that their superb governance has given West Bengal a steady annual State Domestic Product (SDP) growth rate of seven per cent - higher than the national average of 4.4 per cent and lower than only Gujarat. This is nothing but pinko statistics. Logically, a state with such a high SDP should also report a healthy Tax to SDP ratio. But West Bengal's average on this count is only 4.61 the lowest among the major states. Even Bihar, at 7.0, is better placed.

Tags: CPM BENGAL-ECONOMY

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Bengal polls: A nightmare explained

Veteran journalist Udayan Namboodri has written a book, Bengal’s Night Without End, which exposes the Marxist subversion of the electoral process and the state administration.

Bengal polls: A nightmare explained (The Statesman, Jan 12, 2006)
Exceprt:

A new book with shocking revelations about the manner in which elections have been systematically rigged and opponents crushed during the past three decades in West Bengal threatens to cause serious embarrassment to the ruling Left Front in the run-up to this year’s Assembly election.
Written by veteran journalist Udayan Namboodiri, the 505-page book — Bengal’s Night Without End — is an exhaustive account of how the ruling CPI-M has subverted the administration and the police in the state to serve its political ends, and how its leaders have flouted laws, organised killings and violence to stifle dissent.
While the fact that the book has been published by a New Delhi-based foundation with strong links to the Bharatiya Janata Party is likely to provoke a furious counter-attack by the CPI-M, the author has based his findings on careful research, backed by interviews with several Communists — present and lapsed — including Amal Datta and Nantu Pal, and several mid-level and junior party functionaries.
The first part of the book dwells on the various acts of political violence that have marked Marxist rule — Sain Bari, Amta, the killings of Ananda Margis in Kolkata, Suchpur, Gorbeta, Dhantolla and others — and highlights how systematic election rigging has made nonsense of statistical probabilities.
The second part of the book describes how cynically the battle for votes has been conducted, both by the CPI-M and by those in Opposition such as Adhir Chowdhury.
Based on several case studies, it reveals how those with muscle power engineer electoral sweeps.
In the final part, the book describes how the bureaucracy and the administration have been subverted by Marxists

Tags: CPM RIGGING

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