Bengal to intensify anti-Maoist operations: Mamata Banerjee

KOLKATA: With suspected Maoists gunning down two Trinamool workers in Purulia district, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today dismissed the Maoist letter on their ceasefire withdrawal and said joint-operations would be intensified against the ultras.

"Murderers would not be spared. We will surmount the Maoists and snatch their guns. Joint operations would begin. My government has given them five-month time (by suspending the joint operations)," Banerjee told a regional news channel condemning the killing of two party workers at Balarampur this evening.

"We do not want to give importance to such a letter. I thought they (Maoists) would tread the democratic path. We do not know who they are. Can you recognise the men who move with their faces covered in black clothes? Who are this Akash (the state secretary of CPI (Maoist) or Batash?" she pointed.

Her comment came as the Maoist state secretary in a letter to one of the government-appointed interlocutors said, "As there was no official communication to our letter and demands either from you or the government, so the tenure of the agreement ends."

The letter, written on October 31, came just a month after an agreement was signed between Maoists and interlocutors. The two sides had agreed to maintain ceasefire, provided the government suspend the joint forces' operation for a month.