People's Democracy

RATION SHOP OWNER FORCED TO COMMIT SUICIDE

BJP Leaders Caught Hoarding Essential Commodities

IN a heinous attempt to create an artificial shortage of commodities of common consumption, the BJP has apparently adopted the ploy of large-scale hoarding in the districts where they have at least a marginal presence. This was found out very recently when the houses of two BJP leaders Manik Chakraborty and Bankim Das were raided at Purbasthali, at the Nimdaha Gram Panchayat area in the district of Burdwan.

The police acting on a tip-off by the villagers found large quantities of such material that had been forcibly lifted from nearby ration shops and hoarded away. Among the commodities seized were nearly ten quintals each of wheat and rice, a couple of quintals of sugar, an over 50 litres of kerosene. The duo has since been taken into custody.

ROLE OF THE MEDIA

Elsewhere, a group of reporters of the print and audio-visual media were caught playing a dangerous game at the Itaru Gram Panchayat area in the same district. In front of a large number of villagers, the reporters, cameras whirring, asked a group of armed and desperate miscreants to set fire to the houses of CPI (M) leaders after looting them thoroughly. This is how the worthies wanted to ‘show’ the ‘people’s rage’ against the CPI (M). Timely and a somewhat irate intervention by the villagers themselves saw both the goons and their patrons of the Fourth Estate show clean pairs of heels.

Popular resistance to the attempts to disrupt the public distribution system has started grow into massive proportions. Frequent clashes have been reported from the districts like Murshidabad, Burdwan, Birbhum, and Maldah where attempts to loot ration shops were forcibly foiled by the villagers.

TRAGEDY STRIKES

However, not everywhere could the villagers and the police intervene in good time. A tragedy has occurred as a result, at Bankura. At a place called Banasuria at Gangajalghanti in the Bankura district, a ration dealer, Biman Kundu, a CPI (M) sympathiser had been under pressure for some time from local Trinamul Congress-Naxalite goons to hand over to them and free of cost large quantities of rationed commodities for the latter to distribute them amongst the villagers for the purpose of gaining political mileage.

When Biman Kundu refused to knuckle under, the goons one evening left a note demanding ten lakhs of rupees or else. When the lumpens returned deep into the same night armed with guns and sharp weapons and carrying torches, Biman Kundu panicked, and hanged himself in his shop. The villagers woke up too late to save the hapless man but in good time to drive the goons away before they could set the shop on fire. Elsewhere at Moynapore in Bankura district, Trinamul Congress-Naxalite miscreants attacked a ration shop and set a motor cycle on fire with an exploding gas cylinder. They fled when the villagers gave chase, catching five of the goons and handing them over to the police. (B P)