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| Naxalites feel 'isolated' in Lalgarh |
| Rajat Roy / Kolkata Jan 29, 2010, 00:52 IST |
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Following a joint police operation against them since September last year, Naxalites in West Bengal are apparently on the run in Lalgarh, the centre of police offensive against local tribals.
Recent appeals by senior tribal leader Koteswar Rao alias Kishenji and Bikash gave enough indications to that effect. First, Kishenji urged Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee to pay a visit to Lalgarh for initiating a dialogue with them to resolve the crisis. Yesterday, the Naxalites urged local people not to lend support to the joint force of state and central police personnel, engaged in combating the rebels at Lalgarh.
In a letter circulated to the local media, the Naxalites have claimed that recently the administration started mobilising the local people against them.
The government has recruited a few thousand villagers from Bankura, Garbeta, Chandrakona Road, Keshpur and some other places adjoining Lalgarh.
These villagers have been kept in a number of camps and are being trained to use firearms by the joint force stationed there.
According to the rebels, the state administration is trying to use these villagers along with the joint police operation in its effort to trap the members of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA).
The appeal issued in the name of Bikash, a self-styled commander of PLGA, said the state administration had adopted a new strategy to isolate the Naxalites in the ‘Junglemahal’ region, where it is sending these armed villagers. Junglemahal are the Naxal-hit areas in the districts of West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura.
Desperate to come out of the isolation in Junglemahal, the Naxalites have turned to Banerjee for a dialogue. In response to her recent call to the Naxalites to shun arms and come to the discussion table, which she issued from a mass meeting held on January 15 at Jhargram, the sub-divisional town near Lalgarh, Kishenji released an open letter to Banerjee inviting her to Junglemahal for talks.
The rebels have created an ‘information network’ by placing their men in strategic areas.
Also, the state and central police forces are coordinating with their counterparts in the neighbouring Jharkhand, another state hit by Naxalism.
The Naxalite leader claimed that all these attempts to isolate PLGA from the poor tribals of Lalgarh and the adjoining areas would not bear fruit.
The latest appeal by the Naxalites to the local villagers asking them not to join hands with state police personnel reveals the chink in their armour. Last week, after a joint offensive on a village in Goaltor near Lalgarh, police recovered a laptop, some documents and firearms. According to the police, they conducted the raid after receiving information about Kishenji’s presence in the area. Though Kishenji slipped through their dragnet, two of his associates were arrested.
Mentioning about the raid in their statement-cum-appeal, the Naxalites stated that the arrested leaders were tricked into a trap set up by the police and later were falsely portrayed as close associates of Kishenji to gain a psychological advantage.
Anuj Pandey, the superintendent of police of West Midnapore, and one of the key police officers involved in the joint operation against Naxals in Lalgarh, said, “Maoists have been trapped in that area and the forces are closing onto them.”
While the rebels firmly declined to lay down their arms, they showed eagerness to discuss the problems related to the lack of development in tribal areas. Banerjee and her party is yet to respond to that.
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