Click to play videoKolkata: For more than four days now Lalgarh tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato is facing CID interrogation in Kolkata. Mahato faces the charge of waging war against the state with his Maoist links.
Meanwhile, the state government's indication that it could also implicate a section of Kolkata-based cultural personalities for supporting the Lalgarh movement has sparked off a controversy. The list includes Mahato's mentor and author Mahasweta Devi who maintained that her support is for the tribals and never for the Maoists.
"I am waiting for the day… Bengal government can do what it wishes. If they say unlawful activity, I say my weapon is my pen and paper, nothing else. My right is this and if the West Bengal government thinks they can arrest writers, filmmakers, artists then it is sick,” Mahasweta Devi said.
With over 70 Maoist killings in the past four months, the Bengal government made it clear that the crackdown will continue. And the ghastly murder of Jharkhand police officer Francis Induwar has strengthened its resolve.
"The Maoists have today beheaded the cop they had kidnapped. Should we rejoice that?" Chief Secretary of West Bengal Ashok Mohan Chakraborty said.
The state's principal Opposition Trinamool Congress has already drawn the political battlelines by expressing solidarity for the intellectuals in question.
"We still feel that the intellectuals are being falsely implicated. The people of Bengal will react sharply if the harassment continues,” Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee said.
Questions have been raised on whether Unlawful Activities Prevention Act can be imposed on activists and supporters of the Lalgarh People's Committee which is not a banned organisation. But since the committee worked allegedly under the direct influence of the Maoists, the government may have difficulty in keeping sympathizers out of its net.
This tight rope walk will be Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s latest dilemma before he meets Home Minister P Chidambaram in Delhi to discuss Naxalism early next week.
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