Mamata not accepting farmers' suicide: CPI(M)

CPI(M) today charged the Mamata Banerjee government with not accepting that farmers in West Bengal were committing suicide due to financial distress and said they would launch agitations on this and the deteriorating law and order situation in the state.
"The chief minister had earlier said nobody had committed suicide and once in Vidhan Sabha, she had said only one person has committed suicide. We had told her that we have a list of 106 persons. She could not give the name of one person in four years," party's Politburo member Suryakanta Mishra said here.
Alleging that farmer suicides and incidents of rape were on the rise in West Bengal, Mishra, who is here to attend the CPI(M) Central Committee meeting, said the party would intensify their agitation in the state.

Mishra, who was recently elected the party's state secretary replacing veteran Biman Basu, referred to the gangrape of a 70-year old nun and another such incident involving an aged widow in Malda, and said such incidents seem to have become a regular occurence.
"These incidents are taking place one after the other. Law and order situation is deteriorating. In Ranaghat, the nun has left the state. There is a feeling of lack of security amongst the residents there," he said.
"Protests and demonstrations have taken place in hundreds of places yesterday in many districts of West Bengal. Tommorrow, a major protest action will be held in Burdwan district. We will intensify our agitation. We are preparing for this," Mishra said.

He said a spate of farmers' suicide have been taking place and even today two financially distressed potato farmers have committed suicide in Burdwan, taking the total number of such cases to 106.