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India-Pakistan

Maoist group claims responsibility for train kaboom

2010-05-29

JHARGRAM (WEST BENGAL) — The People's Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), considered a frontal organisation of the Maoists, claimed responsibility for the derailment of the Howrah-Kurla Gyaneshwari Express in which at least 65 passengers were killed and over 200 injured on Friday, police said. West Bengal Director General of Police Bhupinder Singh told mediapersons here that two posters of PCAPA were found from the accident site near West Midnapore district's Jhargram town, about 155 km from Kolkata. One of the posters of the Lalgarh-based tribal body said the “programme (of attacking the train) was taken in protest against the atrocities perpetrated by the joint forces (comprising central paramilitary troopers and state armed police) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) goons'. “This is the handiwork of the Maoists. We have found two posters. PCAPA has taken responsibility,' Singh said after visiting the accident spot between Sardiha and Khemasuly railway stations. “PCAPA is a sort of frontal organisation of the Maoists. The Maoists are active in this belt. They had earlier stopped the Rajdhani (in October last year),' the top police official said. Asked whether the police had any intelligence inputs of possible Maoists strike, Singh said there was no such specific information. “But they can do such things all the time,' he said. He said the pandrol clips (used to fix the rail to the sleeper) were found open for over 50 metres. Earlier, Bhupinder Singh told IANS that the fishplates were found removed and about one-and-a-half feet of the railway track cut at the site of the tragedy. The PCAPA had been in the forefront of the Lalgarh movement that began in November 2008 over alleged police atrocities after a landmine blast on the convoy of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. The police and the state administration alleged from the outset that the Maoists were spearheading the movement in the camouflage of the PCAPA. But the left-wing guerrillas first came overground in Lalgarh, about 200 km from Kolkata in West Midnapore district, days before the joint security forces began an operation to flush out the rebels last June. Top PCAPA leader Chhattradhar Mahato is now behind bars, while its president Lalmohan Tudu died in police firing. In their absence, the PCAPA is now spearheaded by its spokesman Asit Mahato and treasurer Santosh Patra.

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India-Pakistan

Strikeback in Maoist fight

2010-02-24

Kantapahari, Feb. 23: The president of the People's Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA), the Maoist-backed tribal resistance group based in Lalgarh, was killed last night in what police claimed was “retaliatory fire' after guerrillas attacked a CRPF camp here. However, the PCPA said Lalmohan Tudu, 48, was picked up from his home when he had dropped in for a brief visit and shot dead in a paddy field behind the house. Such persistent claims during the day and the smouldering mood among security forces after the police massacre in Shilda suggest the stirrings of an undeclared strategy shift in the fight against Maoists. No one would publicly call it an “eye-for-an-eye' crackdown but several officers recalled such a policy had crushed the Naxalite movement of the late 1960s. ( ) If Tudu was killed as a result of a policy shift, it has come at a time the Maoists have betrayed signs that they could be feeling the heat of low-intensity security operations now under way in states such as Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. A Maoist leader had yesterday made a conditional truce offer to the Centre. In response, Union home minister P. Chidambaram today sought to tighten the screws, telling the rebels how to draft such messages (“no ifs, no buts') and sending them a fax number of an additional secretary's office. ( ) On record, the security forces insisted that PCPA chief Tudu died in a shootout with the CRPF in Kantapahari, 6km from Lalgarh town. According to the district police, the security forces received information of a Maoist “build-up' in the forest outside the camp around 8.30 last night. The CRPF jawans took up positions outside and within a brief while, the police said, firing started from the forest. The jawans retaliated and the exchange carried on for half an hour. When the guns fell silent, the jawans found a body with several bullet marks. Next to him were two firearms: a 9mm pistol and a country-made revolver. The body was later handed over to the police. “This morning, the body was identified as that of Lalmohan Tudu and he was obviously among those firing at the police camp,' said West Midnapore SP Manoj Verma. However, Asit Mahato, a spokesperson for the PCPA, said: “Lalmohan Tudu was picked up from his house by the police and shot dead.' Tudu, who kept a low profile, had become the president of the committee in November 2008 when it was floated. He was rarely at the forefront of the movement, but had accompanied Chhatradhar Mahato, who is now in jail, to a meeting with the Election Commission before the Lok Sabha polls. At Tudu's village Narcha, 3km from the CRPF camp, Sanatan Murmu, a 60-year-old neighbour, said: “I saw Tudu here at 7.30 last evening and he said he had come to collect a few things since his daughter was appearing for the Madhyamik exams from today. After that, I went to my house and shut the door.' Murmu said that around 8.30 he heard a lot of footsteps and peered out. “I saw a lot of policemen and quickly shut the door,' Murmu said. “About 15 minutes later, I heard four or five gunshots from the paddy field behind the house and now I hear that the police are saying that he had died in a gun battle. I find it very difficult to believe.' Another neighbour also more or less echoed Murmu.

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