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We condemn in the strongest possible terms the shocking incident in Netai village, near Lalgarh (West Midnapur district), where armed mercenaries (harmads) of the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) fired indiscriminately on a crowd of unarmed villagers, mostly women, resulting in the death of at least eight people and injuries to many. The villagers had gathered around the harmad camp in the village, housed in the two story house of a local CPI(Marxist) leader, demanding that the harmads stop the atrocities on the villagers and leave the village. This is a culmination of the continuous violence in the Lalgarh area perpetrated by armed cadres and mercenaries recruited by the CPI(Marxist) to regain their control over the area which had been lost in the wake of the Lalgarh uprising. The harmads have established fortified camps by occupying schools, government buildings and anganwadi centres, creating havoc in surrounding areas. While in the past two weeks the union home minister P Chidambaram and the West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee have indulged in semantics over the word harmad, here we witness the result of the policies jointly pursued by both the state and central governments. It is common knowledge that the entry and continued existence of harmad camps in Lalgarh have been possible only with the active help of the joint state and central security forces who have used the harmads to penetrate deep within the area in order to suppress the peoples struggle in Lalgarh. The unprecedented and continued use of Section 144 in the area have allowed this condition to develop and sustain, preventing the entry of any members of civil society into the area. We demand that to prevent the reoccurrence of such incidents, and to end the continued bloodshed and repression in Lalgarh, the harmad camps be immediately disbanded and the joint forces withdrawn from the area. Also the perpetrators of this heinous crime, and all other atrocities, should be brought to book. We also demand that Section 144 should be immediately withdrawn from the area, allowing access to all citizens. Sanhati, 11 Jan. 2011 ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
