Drive on to recover illegal weapons: CM

West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said today that in view of the growing political violence in rural Bengal, the police administration started special drive to recover illegal weapons. He said that almost everyday illegal weapons were being recovered in various parts of the state.

He mentioned the name of Shashan in North 24 Parganas district and Nanoor in Birbhum where the ruling CPI(M) and opposition TMC are engaged in a fierce turf war. The chief minister said this today while replying to the debate on state's police budget of Rs 2,650 crore for 2010-11.

Earlier, participating in the debate, the Congress chief whip Manas Bhuiyan fervently appealed to the chief minister to take urgent measures to recover illegal arms which was causing so much bloodletting in the rural areas now. Bhuiyan demanded that police should take actions against all those who were collecting arms irrespective of their political affiliations.

On the question of tackling Naxalites in Junglemahal, the chief minister was emphatic that the joint operation of central and state police forces, which was begun on June 18, 2009, started yielding results.

But he warned that unless coordinated steps were taken in Orissa and Jharkhand, West Bengal would not be able to maintain that for long. He explained that Naxalites (CPI-Maoists) should not be seen as a reaction to the existing uneven development of that area.

"The Naxalites are out there to challenge the State. They deliberately selected Junglemahal because of its terrain," he observed.

He admitted that it was true that the tribals of Junglemahal were relatively deprived from development compared to the other parts of the state. To address that anomaly, the state administration had taken a slew of development projects in that area. The tribals are getting rice at Rs 2 per kilo, girl students are getting scholarship there, he said.