Left target of Trinamool, Maoist violence: CPM

NEW DELHI: A day after the killing of four CPM activists in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas, where two of them were fired at “with revolvers inside their mouths”, the Marxist party pointed fingers at the Trinamool Congress. The party polit bureau on Tuesday alleged the Left was being targeted by both Trinamool Congress and the Maoists in the state.

It said the incident in Narayanpur under the Canning Police Station showed the extent of violence perpetrated against the Left while the Trinamool Congress and its leader Mamata Banerjee campaign that there is no law and order in the state. “The gruesome nature of the killings is revealed by the fact that two of them were killed after being fired with the revolver placed inside their mouths,” a polit bureau statement issued here said.

CPM and the Trinamool Congress have been accusing each other of unleashing violence in the state and supporting the Maoists. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said two days ago that the Maoists could not have become so powerful unless the state government supplied them arms and foreign funds flowed in. CPM, along with other Left parties, had presented a memorandum to the prime minister listing out the more than 150 party leaders and activists killed by the opposition in the state since the Lok Sabha election results.

Describing the Canning incident as a “major development in this continued spree of violence,” the polit bureau said “anti-social and criminal elements of the Trinamool Congress launched a murderous assault on a peaceful and unarmed group of CPM supporters who were returning after filing nomination papers for the elections to the managing committee of a local madrasa.” CPM has called a 12-hour bandh in the district on Wednesday. The madrasa managing committee has been under the CPM’s control for around three decades. Though the Trinamool Congress has made inroads into South 24-Parganas, Narayanpur gram panchayat and rural bodies around are held by the Left. Land minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah is the local MLA.

CPM has also been alleging that the Left had become the main target for the Maoists. “Hardly a day passes in Junglemahal area especially in West Midnapur district when CPM activists are not killed by Maoist marauders. In the rest of the state it is the Trinamool which carries on the campaign of violence,” it said.