PWG now lay a claim to Bengal massacre victims

PWG now lay a claim to Bengal massacre victims
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

CALCUTTA, JANUARY 7: In an interesting twist to the alleged massacre of 11 people in Garbeta on Thursday, some Naxalite groups claimed here this evening that ``the people who were killed by the CPI(M) were the activists of People's War Group and not Trinamool men.'' Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress has been claiming that people who were killed are Trinamool cadre.

Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation leader Kartik Pal said: ``The clashes between the PWG peasant front, the Majdoor Kishan Sangram Samiti (MKSS), and the CPI(M) since October last year was an old story in the village Chota Angria.''

Pal said: ``On 4th night last week about 8.30 p.m. when the workers of the MKSS gathered together for a meeting, the armed CPI(M) cadre with the help of police carried out the massacre. Later, they took away the dead bodies.''

According to Pal, the PWG has some strength in Panchayat no 1 and 2 in the area where the alleged killings took place. Pal said the PWG activists earlier had clashed with the BJP and the Trinamool Congress but since October last year the PWG workers had clashes with the CPI(M).''

``And the CPI(M) used the opportunity to attack the PWG men,'' Pal said. Demanding a judicial probe into the `killings', he said: ``A day before State CPI(M) secretary Anil Biswas held a public meeting in Garbeta recently, armed party cadre with police entered the village and issued orders that except old and children every one has to attend Biswas' meeting.'' He said ``missing bodies is not a new phenomenon either, it happened during the Naxalite period in West Bengal.''

He criticised both the TMC and the CPI(M) for letting ``lose a reign of terror on the poor peasants in West Bengal villages.''

Meanwhile, Editor of Naya Ishtahar A Bhattacharya, a former Naxalite leader, who did his research on the Naxalite movement also shared the view. And said: ``There is a strong possibility of the CPI(M) killing the Naxalites.'' Bhattacharya said: ``The CPI(M), which used the Naxalites against the TMC, earlier now turned their guns on them.''