Maoists shot dead seven Forward Bloc workers at Jhalda in Purulia district on Friday suspecting them to be police informers.
Maoists shot dead seven Forward Bloc workers at Jhalda in Purulia district on Friday suspecting them to be police informers.
The workers aged 40 to 50 years were picked up from their homes at about 2 am and shot from close range in a field at
Baghbinda village bordering Jharkhand, superintendent of police Sunil Kumar Chaudhuri said.
The slain have been identified as Chapala Garai, Tapan Singh Sardar, Kinkar Singh, Rajesh Singh, Gopeswar Mahato, Gobardhan Singh and Arjun Singh Mura.
Maoists left posters at the massacre site claiming that the villagers had been spying for security personnel.
Forward Bloc state secretary Ashok Ghosh condemning the incident. He said Chapala Garai was pradhan of Darda gram panchayat.
Ghosh accused police of inaction and said the attack was in retaliation to the anti-Maoist operation backed by the Left Front government.
Calling upon people in West Bengal to protest the heinous attack, he announced a bandh in Purulia district on Saturday.
Another Forward Bloc leader Naren Chatterjee said those who have been saying that there are no Maoists in the state should realise after this incident how the ultras have become a threat to innocent people.
Narahari Mahato, Forward Bloc’s Purulia MP, said Maoists were attacking Purulia because they had been corned by security forces at Lalgarh in West Midnapore district.
“These attacks are aimed at scaring people before the state assembly elections next year,” he claimed.
Meanwhile, CPI(M) state secretary and Left Front chairman in West Bengal Biman Bose said Maoists, actively supported by the opposition Trinamool Congress, were trying to establish a reign of terror by killing Left supporters ahead of the elections.
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