Why the West Bengal unit of the CPM should not be banned by law?

Why the West Bengal unit of the CPM should not be banned by law?

Krishanu Mitra


The connivance of the erstwhile CPM government of West Bengal with criminals and mercenaries stands exposed with the recovery of huge cache of arms and ammunitions in different parts of the state. The opposition parties in the state has long accused the erstwhile ruling CPM led left front of intimidating their workers and supporters post every election where ever it (the opposition) succeeded at garnering good electoral successes. The presence of CPM mercenaries in rural Bengal has for years been an open secret in the state. These mercenary groups were tasked at regaining lost ground for the CPM at each and every place the opposition gained electoral success and had operated under direct command of different state and district leaders. CPM leaders like Susanta Ghosh, Anil Bose, Anuj Panday, Majid Master, Binoy Konar, Nirupam Sen, Tapan Ghosh and Sukur Ali were accused of being in the forefront in these kind of activities. Yet these were never discussed in the national media. The ever vocal CPM national leaders like Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yachuri, and Brinda Karat had never been asked a point blank question in this regard.

Going by the report in the local media in the past 20-25 days only, the recovery of sophisticated arms and in some cases arms looted from police speaks volumes of the state of affairs in the state under the leftists. In Chamkaitala 20 guns were found from CPM leader Prasanta Pal’s house. In Pingla, three rifles, a musket, 250 cartridges, 100 bows and 100 axes were found in a field close to the CPM zonal office. In Keshpur, nine rifles were recovered from CPM leader Manoj Patra’s house. In Sahashpur village 13 guns were seized from a CPM party office. Another 570 rifles were recovered from different places of Janglemahal. Three human skeletons were recovered from the ground next to the CPM party office at Kankabati village in West Midnapore district. More than 250 illegal weapons have been recovered by the villagers in West Midnapore and Bankura. A huge cache of arms and ammunition, including an Insas rifle claimed to be looted by Maoists from the Eastern Frontier Rifles camp in Silda, was dug out by villagers from near a CPM office at Enayetpur in West Midnapore. In another raid, 58 sets of camouflage uniforms were found at a CPM office at Patashpur, East Midnapore. Police recovered 10 firearms and 500 rounds of ammunition from a party office at Keshia of Goaltore. Eight more rifles and 2,000 rounds of ammunition were recovered from a CPM office at Khetua village of Anandapur. More arms were found at Kashijhora in Salboni and nearly 20 muskets stuffed inside two sacks were recovered near a CPM party office at Kotulpur in Bankura. An entire factory for manufacturing illegal arms was discovered in Garbeta, West Midnapore. On 4th June villagers of Benapota escorted the police to recover seven skeletons from a field close to the ancestral house of ex-minister and CPM MLA from Garbeta Susanta Ghosh. The villagers claimed the seven skeletons were of Trinmool Congress workers who were killed at Garbeta on 22.09.02. by CPM goons and their bodies buried. All these still remains the tip of an iceberg, as more and more such incidents being reported almost on a daily basis. Many such incidents of mass killings and mass graves are reported from far flung areas of the state.

These incidents puts a big question mark on CPM's allegiance to our constitution, democracy and the rule of law. The filth of its actions now outshines the dirt of its Stalinist ideology. The larger question being asked in the political circle of West Bengal as well as by the general public in the state is, with these recoveries of such an obnoxious number of illegal arms and ammunition from CPM party offices and from the dwellings of party comrades why the state unit of the CPM should not be banned by the law. Questions are also being raised as to why the national parties namely the Congress and the BJP not raising the right questions at the national stage?