China planned transit route for Naxals, claims book on Kanu Sanyal

KOLKATA: China had planned a secret transit route for Naxals to India via Nepal-Bhutan during the height of their movement, a book on the life of leading Naxalite leader Kanu Sanyal claimed.

The plan, according to the book "The First Naxal" written by a city-based journalist Bappaditya Pal, however, did not materialise as a few months after returning from China, Sanyal and his aides were arrested.

The 264-page book was today released in the presence of former chairman of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission Justice (Retd) Asok Kumar Ganguly and civil rights activist Binayak Sen.

The book said Sanyal believed Maoists had strayed into terrorism and was never impressed by Maoist activities. Instead, the founder of the Naxalbari uprising accused the Maoists of straying into the path of terrorism.

Sanyal had pointed out that Maoists were relying more on arms than on people and were thus getting isolated from the masses.

Sanyal, according to the book, had claimed that because of Mamata Banerjee, Singur farmers would never get back their land.

The author of the book said "hopefully, it (the book) will clear several misconceptions about Naxal movement which are random in public perception".

Civil rights activist Binayak Sen alleged that decades after Naxalbari movement, chronic hunger still haunted north Bengal where people were dying of malnutrition.

Sen was referring to the closed and abandoned tea gardens of north Bengal which he had visited a few months ago as a member of a human rights group.

Sen said the members of the human rights group found that over 60 per cent of workers had a Body Mass Index (BMI) of less than 18.5, which indicated of chronic hunger as per the World Health Organisation guideline.

Justice Ganguly said very few revolutionaries lived as humble and transparent life as Kanu Sanyal.