KOLKATA: After a lull of six years, Maoist activities have started afresh in West Bengal districts bordering Jharkhand, most notably Jhargram and Purulia.
Alarm bells have been ringing in the state after an armed squad of CPI(Maoist) guerillas led by the banned outfit’s West Bengal committee secretary Ashim Mondal alias Akash were spotted several times in July.
They are feared to have sneaked into West Bengal following intensified crackdown on the Maoists in Jharkhand following the killing of a CRPF jawan on July 11 and six Jharkhand Jaguar Force jawans earlier on June 27.
Fearing that the Maoist squad could spark off another round of rebellion on the lines of one in 2008 led by Maoist leader Malloujula Koteswara Rao alias Kishenji, which had claimed over 700 lives, Jharkhand and West Bengal police have launched a joint combing operation in Jhargram to nab the ultras.
“Though the area has long been sanitised of local guerrillas, there are still Maoist sympathisers in Jhargram and Purulia,” a top police official said.
The squad led by Akash, a native of Chandrakona town in Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal, has prominent Maoists involved attacks on security forces, including Ramaprasad Mardi, Dilip Singh Sardar, Kamal Maity, Madan Mahato and his wife Joba.
Akash reports directly to the CPI(Maoist) eastern zone (comprising West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Assam) chief Prasanta Bose alias Kishen Da, a 70-year-old politburo member based out of Jharkhand, who is considered next only to the outfit’s general secretary Muppala Lakshmana Rao alias Ganapathy.
Akash is the sole surviving member of the CPI(Maoist) West Bengal committee formed by Kishenji whose encounter in 2011 had brought an end to the Maoist insurgency in West Bengal.
During his recent visit, CRPF DG Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar confirmed that Maoist activities have increased in western part of the state. “There are reports that Maoists are trying to regroup in Jhargram,” he said.
While four of 23 districts of the state were earlier categorised as Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) affected, the recent list released by the Centre has only Jhargram’s name on the list.
It is feared that the Maoists may exploit the present political turmoil in the region to spread their wings in the tribal heartland. The district elected BJP members in a large number of gram panchayats in the May panchayat polls. However, 45 of the winning BJP candidates joined the ruling Trinamool Congress on July 21, which has created a sense of betrayal among the people, sources revealed.
Two BJP workers were found hanging within a span of three days in Balarampur block of Purulia district in May- June. Posters were stuck to the back of one of them, a trademark Maoist-style executions in the late 2000s.
With Lok Sabha elections approaching, security forces fear that the presence of the Maoists in the tribal-dominated regions could be a major security threat.