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CPI-ML wants probe into Basu's 'atrocities' against Naxals

The Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist-Liberation would demand a judicial inquiry into the "brutal massacre" of Naxalites in West Bengal in the 1970s when Chief Minister Jyoti Basu held the police portfolio, its general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said Monday.

Bhattacharya, who assumed the mantle after the sudden demise of the legendary Vinod Mishra, said his party planned a two-week padayatra (walkathon) from Siliguri to Calcutta, covering 500 km, demanding to expose the misdeeds of the then Left Front government.

Siliguri was chosen to launch the programme as it had witnessed a series of revolutionary movements, besides being the birthplace of veteran ideologue comrade Charu Mazumdar, he added.

He said hundreds of Naxalites, including Mazumdar and Saras Datto, who took the movement to its peak, were shot dead by the then West Bengal government in 10 major massacres, particularly between Kashipur and Baranagur on Calcutta's outskirts.

The misdeeds came to light when former West Bengal chief minister Siddhardha Shankar Ray recently blamed the CPI-M, and a judicial probe would unearth the role played by the Marxists and others in liquidating the Naxalites, he said.

The youngest among the CPI-MLL politburo members, Bhattacharya said the party had decided to make further inroads into Bihar, which according to him was a fertile ground for the revolutionary movement.

At the same time, the party had warned the cadres against initiating any "squad action" on their own against the fraternal militant factions like the outlawed Maoist Communist Centre or the Party Unity, which had merged with the People's War of Andhra Pradesh, he added.

Bhattacharya said the CPI-ML was poised to defend itself from the onslaughts of these rival factions or from the massacres being perpetrated by right wing extremists and the private armies of the landlords such as the Ranbir Sena and Sunlight Sena.

The party, he claimed, had kept at bay such forces by repulsing the massacres, including the gruesome Lakshmanpur episode in the extremist-infested Jehanabad district of Bihar, where 61 Naxalite sympathisers were killed and their cattle slaughtered in December 1997.

"We do not mind extending our unqualified support to the fraternal Naxalite parties like the Party Unity in teaching a fitting lesson to the private armies whose mindless violence against the weaker sections should not be tolerated by civilised society," he added.

He said the open threat to the weaker sections who were sympathising with the leadership in Bihar was still looming large with the Ranbir Sena chieftain recently announcing his intention to strike again.

Bhattacharya, a post-graduate in statistics with an excellent academic record, said he would initiate efforts for achieving unity among the left revolutionaries on the lines mooted by Vinod Mishra.

The party had decided to further strengthen the agricultural labour movement both in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. For this, a statewide convention of farm labourers would be organised in Patna on February 23.

The party had consolidated its position in northern Bihar where it was being well received, he claimed.

He said the Ranbir Sena, which had described Vinod Mishra's death as the exit of an "evil soul" would be taught a fitting lesson.

Besides continuing the Navjagaran campaign against what he alleged the 'jungle raj' in Bihar and the saffronisation of the country, the party would strive to dynamise the working class in Bihar against exploitation and the political repression by the Rashtriya Janata Dal government.

Bhattacharya later participated in the meeting to condole the death of his predecessor. Several representatives like M Omkar of the Marxist Communist Party of India joined the meeting, which hailed Mishra's contribution to the left movement.

UNI

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