Three CPI(M) men killed, Maoists form three-tier human shield

Categorized | Featured, Terrorism

Three CPI(M) men killed, Maoists form three-tier human shield

Posted on 17 June 2009 by Anubhav Arya

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Paramilitary forces planning a crackdown on Maoists who have laid siege to two police station areas in West Midnapore district, tribals backing them have put up a three-tier human shield.

“The Maoists have formed a three-tier human shield with women and children in the vanguard, men behind them and armed naxals forming the rearguard,” informed a senior police official involved in the drawing up strategies against the agitators in Lalgarh.

The police have withdrawn from camps fearing looting of arms with the tribals under the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities demolishing and torching empty camps in the past few days, he said.

Maoist action squad leader, known as Bikash, and his men were patrolling roads between Lalgarh and Belpahari armed with AK47s, he said.

Lalgarh, which is approachable from four different directions by metalled and mud roads, have been cut-off at least from three sides with the road dug up at several places and over one hundred trees cut down to obstruct passage.

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Meanwhile, according to a senior Left Front leader, Chief Minister Bhattacharjee told a Left Front meeting that a squad of 100 Maoists armed with sophisticated weapons with some trained at Chaibasa in neighbouring Jharkhand had entered Lalgarh and adjoining areas.

Bhattacharjee said he got the information from the Jharkhand government and would take up the matter with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi on June 19, the leader, requesting anonymity, told PTI.

The agitation had started last November following police raids in villages to arrest suspects after Bhattacharjee and two Union ministers escaped a landmine explosion near Salboni while returning from the foundation laying ceremony of a steel plant project.

The people had formed the Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities to launch the agitation against the administration and since then had not allowed any government officer or the police into the area.

They have been boycotting the administration while demanding that the police should tender a public apology for its ‘excesses on the people’.

Last week, the police withdrew from its camps in Lalgarh three of which were torched by the agitators. The tribals also set ablaze CPI(M) offices at Lalgarh and Belatikri.