Previously a Trinamool Congress supporter from a non-descript Lalgarh village in West Midnapore, Chhatradhar Mahato shot to prominence with his six-month seizure of Lalgarh after his alleged role in the landmine attack on Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s convoy in Salboni in November 2008.

He formed the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) to resist the police action in Lalgarh and Salboni in West Midnapore, and has not looked back.

Born in 1964, Mahato hails from a tiny hamlet of Amlia and is the eldest of three brothers. If his PCAPA

is an alleged frontal organisation of the Maoists, his brother Sashadhar remains underground and is considered the mastermind of the Salboni blast.

After Higher Secondary from the Lalgarh Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith, he joined Midnapore Day College, where he became an active member of the Chhatra Parishad, the student wing of the Congress, inspired by Mamata Banerjee, then a Youth Congress leader. Later, after Mamata formed the Trinamool, he joined her.

However, after he was picked up for his agitation against “administrative corruption” in West Midnapore in 2001 and sent to custody for three months, Mahato left the Trinamool. The three months in jail would become a turning point in his life, and when he came out, he joined the CPI(Maoist).

In 2008, he formed the PCAPA and spearheaded a movement against alleged police atrocities in Lalgarh. The local administration was rendered powerless, with Mahato under the aegis of the Maoists ruling the area for nine months.

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