WEST BENGAL

CPI(M) Worker Killed In South 24 Parganas

B Prasant

 A GANG of criminals who enjoy the patronage of the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) brutally killed Comrade Kalipada Mal in the area known as Chhatriser Lat at Kultali in South 24 Parganas late on October 3 night. The miscreants also forcibly took away seven other CPI(M) workers and their fate was unknown at the time of filing this report. 

 The SUCI has been indulging in terror tactics in parts of the South 24 Parganas district in the run-up to the panchayat polls scheduled for next year, more so because the SUCI is itself ridden with internal dissensions. In the present case of murder and kidnapping, the SUCI leadership has made irresponsible statements about “further retaliation,” and has cited a case of dacoity of shops adjacent to the Kultali SUCI office as an “attack on the SUCI by the CPI(M).”

 District secretary of the CPI(M)’s 24 Parganas unit, Santimoy Bhattacharya has called for a joint initiative by the CPI(M) and the SUCI towards establishment of peace and amity in the Kultali-Joynagar-Mathurapur area. 

 However, on October 5 again, armed criminals in the pay of the SUCI assaulted and left critically injured three CPI(M) workers at Raidighi in the same district. The incident occurred when SUCI goons pounced on a CPI(M) worker, Arabanida Ray, in Radhakantapur-Ateswartala area under the Raidighi police station. 

 When two other CPI(M) workers, Felu Gayen and Brajen Haldar, came to Roy’s rescue, they too were assaulted with sharp weapons. All three had to be admitted in a city hospital in grave condition.

 Elsewhere, at Kalimpong in Darjeeling district, a lone gunman killed C K Pradhan, dissident leader of the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), late on October 3 afternoon. Pradhan, once known as the Man Friday of GNLF supremo Subhas Ghising, had fallen out with Ghising in the wake of the attack on Ghising by a former GNLF loyalist Chhatre Subba.

 The CPI(M)’s Darjeeling district secretary Sandopal Lepcha condemned Pradhan’s murder in a statement. The police are making inquiries into the killing. In the meanwhile, the GNLF organised a 72-hour bandh in Kalimpong and Kurseong, and a 24-hour bandh in Darjeeling.  

COM. ABUL BASHAR REMEMBERED

 THE Bengal unit of the CITU organised a meeting on October 4 in remembrance of the late Comrade Abul Bashar. The meeting was held at the Shramik Bhavan in Kolkata. Bengal Tailors Union leader Pranab Chakravarty presided over the occasion.

 In his brief speech, all-India CITU’s vice-president and CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Jyoti Basu recalled his five decades long association with Comrade Bashar and said that the workers in Bengal, in the organised as well as the unorganised sector, would feel the loss of their departed leader, now more than ever.

 “We live in difficult circumstances,” said the former Bengal chief minister. Then he went on to point out how “with the nation’s economy virtually getting to collapse around us, self-sufficiency and economic sovereignty are words that have quickly become foreign to the ruling coterie up in Delhi.”

 “As the BJP-led union government,” said Jyoti Basu, “leans shamelessly on the shoulders of nations like the US, the workers need to unite and to organise themselves on a strong footing in every sector of the economy.”  In this hour of crisis, held Basu, one missed a working class leader like the late Comrade Bashar.

 “The process of enhancing the political consciousness of the workers must be continued with vigour and dedication,” Basu pointed out, “while a joint movement of the mazdoors and kisans must be built up to confront the capitalists, indigenous and foreign, in the difficult days ahead.” 

 “The example.” concluded Basu “set by dedicated trade union leaders like the late Comrade Abul Bashar in building up the struggle in the direction of changing the present exploitative order shall always fill the hearts and minds of the working people with inspiration, and with hope for a better future.”

 In his speech, state CITU general secretary Chittabrata Majumdar noted how the tailoring industry, where Comrade Bashar had worked tirelessly until he fell mortally ill, was affected by the cheap importation of ready-to-wear garments of inferior quality. Such imports, noted Majumdar, were in the process of flooding India’s markets, in rural and urban areas, thanks to the liberal import policy adopted by the BJP government in Delhi.

 Majumdar pointed out that the multinationals organise their assault on the markets in a slow and deliberate manner, with incremental doses of “liberalism,” leaving a great many people vulnerable to the impact because they would wake up to the urgency of the situation when it is too late.

 Comrade Abul Bashar, said Majumdar, had an advantage in his life-long pursuit of organising the workers. He lived and worked amidst the artisans and made them aware of the implications of the various sets of policy decisions of the union governments. The void left by the demise of Comrade Abul Bashar, said Majumdar, would be difficult to be filled up, and the best way to remember the departed trade union leader would be to strive towards completing the tasks that he had to leave unfinished.

 Mohd Amin, CITU leader and labour minister of the Bengal Left Front government, and Santimoy Bhattacharya, district secretary of the CPI(M)’s South 24 Parganas unit, also addressed the meeting, among others.

POLICE NABS KLO TERRORISTS

THE Bengal police captured a terrorist and two gunrunners belonging to the Kamtapuri Liberation Army (KLO) in two different parts of Coochbehar district on October 2. All three are at present in police custody at the Tufangunj police station.

The police arrested Dilip Sarkar, also known as Kanak Sarkar alias Diganta, from the remote Trisima area of Barokodali under Tufangunj police station. Dilip Sarkar received arms training in one of the KLO camps being run in neighbouring Bhutan by a joint ULFA-KLO team.

Elsewhere in the Coochbehar district, two notorious arms smugglers --- Nikhil Sutradhar and Bhajan Saha --- ran into a police trap between Tufangunj and Malbari. Several country-made versions of the AK-47 automatic rifles and a supply of ammunition were recovered from the duo. The police believe that Sutradhar and Saha took delivery of arms from Bodo terrorists to keep the KLO supplied with guns and ammunition.

LEFT FRONT’S AUSTERITY MEASURES

THE West Bengal Left Front government has put into action a series of measures to cut down non-plan expenditure. The measures are expected to save around Rs 750 crore in about six months.

For quite some time now, the Left Front government has had to reckon with the decision of the BJP-run union government to severely cut down all forms of central assistance. The union government has also obdurately stuck to its decision not to cut down on the rate of interest it charges from the states on the loans advanced. 

This has virtually forced the hands of the Bengal Left Front government to implement the cost cutting measures so that planned developmental works proceed unhindered.

The cost cutting measures have been implemented chiefly in the realm of facilities available with the civil servants as part of their duties and perquisites. It has also been decided to make an inventory of the cars, telephones and cellular phones in use in the government departments.

Hospitality costs and expenses incurred in running exhibitions and fairs, too, are being cut down suitably. The highest limits of electricity and telephone bills have been fixed.

Should any department be found to exceed the amount earmarked for it on non-planned expenditure heads, the treasury office and the pay and account office would not pass their bills. (INN)