Maoists refuse to meet Mukul Roy

KOLKATA: The Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA) from Jangalmahal, including the wife of their arrested leader Chhatradhar Mahato Niyati, on Thursday skipped their scheduled meeting with the Union Minister of State for Shipping Mukul Roy, giving a clear indication that the front organisation of the Maoists had no interest in joining talks with Mamata Banerjee’s government.

The meeting between Roy and PCPA was fixed by the secretary of the All India Legal Aid Forum and a Supreme Court advocate Joydeep Mukherjee and some other functionaries like the Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Debabrata Banerjee.

But, the PCPA leader and secretary of the Santras Birodhi Mancha, Ashok Jiban, had informed the mediators at the eleventh hour that they will not attend the meeting. Apart from Niyati and Ashok Jiban, another PCPA leader of Nari Ijjat Bachao Committee Jyotsna Mahato, was also supposed to attend Thursday’s meeting with Roy.

Nari Ijjat Bachao Committee is a Jangalmahal-based organisation, which is fighting against so-called police atrocities on women in the region. Police sources, however, claimed that this committee also functions as a Maoist front organisation.

When contacted, Mukherjee told ET on Thursday that they met the Union minister and informed him that the PCPA leaders will not attend the meeting.

“The minister told us that his door is always open for any organisation in Jangalmahal which is interested in sorting out the impasse in the region through talks with the government. We had tried our best to organise a direct talk between the government and the Jangalmahal-based organisation. But the leaders of the organisation did not turn up today.”

Ashok Jiban said that “we wanted to meet our leader Chhatradhar Mahato, who is currently in jail, to consult him before our meeting with the Union minister. But, we were not allowed to meet Mahato in jail.