In the first such attack on a police station in West Bengal, a team of at least 50 heavily armed Maoists — including at least five women — over-ran the Sankrail police station in West Midnapore. In an operation that lasted half an hour, they killed the second officer, Dibakar Bhattacharjee, and Swapan Roy, an assistant sub inspector; looted at least 19 firearms and several rounds of ammunition and abducted Officer-in-Charge (OC) of the station Atindranath Dutta.

In a simultaneous attack, a five-member squad broke off from this main Maoist team and raided a State Bank of India branch nearby. They looted Rs 9.23 lakh from the bank after firing blank shots and snatching the keys from the bank manager. Incidentally, what struck eyewitnesses was the presence of women in the Maoist squad that attacked today. Said Bairagi Charan Naik, manager of the SBI branch that was looted: “The team that entered the bank was led by a woman commander. She snatched the keys from me at gunpoint. She fired blank shots inside the bank to scare those present.”

Late tonight, the Maoists demanded — as ransom for Dutta — the release of seven women cadres arrested from Lalgarh and the cessation of security operations there.

Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen and DGP Bhupinder Singh said it was not possible to accept their demand and Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, after several meetings with top officials, said: “It’s a big incident. We are looking into all aspects.”

Eyewitness accounts said that at least five women cadres had taken part in the operation and were seen travelling with the Maoists in at least 15 motorcycles. Sources said at least two action squads from Orissa and Jhargram had sneaked into Banstala, close to Jhargram on Kali Puja day, and camped in several villages. Over the past two days, they are said to have checked out the police station as they prepared for the strike.

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