By IANS
Kolkata : At least two activists of All India Forward Bloc, the second largest constituent of the Left Front government in West Bengal, were killed and scores injured Tuesday when the police opened fire on “violent” party protestors in a northern town.
The All India Forward Bloc (AIFB), the disgruntled ally of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-spearheaded Left Front, organised rallies across the state to demand minimum 100 days’ employment for the jobless, cancellation of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) policy to secure farmers’ land rights, and job quotas for Muslims.
They also wanted a bar on the unbridled entry of national and multinational biggies in retail business in the state.
“Two Forward Bloc supporters are dead while two others are seriously injured at Dinhata in Cooch-Behar district. The police had to resort to firing after they were attacked by the party’s unruly supporters and baton-charge and teargas failed,” Inspector General of Police (North Bengal) R.S. Nawla told IANS.
“The party’s supporters broke through police cordon and injured cops,” Nawla said. He added that several people were injured and were taken to hospitals.
Cooch-Behar is about 800 km from Kolkata.
Forward Bloc’s Cooch-Behar secretary Udayan Guha said he saw the bodies of at least four partymen at the firing spot.
The firing was pre-planned as the protest was peaceful, Guha alleged. But Nawla claimed that the police resorted to firing to quell the mob after the protestors attacked the sub-divisional officer’s (SDO) office, set fire to vehicles and injured at least seven policemen.
“The police were told about our programme clearly, but they took extreme measures since they were bent upon silencing our voices. A year after the police firing in Nandigram, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said he would not have sent cops if he had known there would be firing. It seems he will repeat the expression in Dinhata after a year,” Guha said.
Forward Bloc has called a statewide shutdown Wednesday to protest the firing.
Firing on a constituent of the ruling Left Front is unprecedented in the over three-decade-long rule of the communists. The March 14 police firing in Nandigram, in which 14 people were killed, targeted mostly villagers who were supporters of the Trinamool Congress.
The Forward Bloc of late has been vocal against the policies of the CPI-M. They have been at loggerheads over issues like Nandigram, the car project at Singur and CPI-M’s retail business policies.
“It is a shame. The police in West Bengal have turned trigger-happy and we had been long protesting against this undemocratic behaviour of the police to silence democratic movements,” said Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee said.
Trinamool Congress has lent support to the shutdown called by the Forward Bloc.
In a severe blow to the CPI-M’s efforts to strengthen Left unity, the Bloc recently ended its 30-year association with the Left Front in Tripura and decided to contest the upcoming assembly polls in the state on its own.
In West Bengal, the Forward Bloc has 23 seats in the 294-member state assembly.
While the total strength of Left Front in the assembly is 235, with the CPI-M alone accounting for 176 seats, the Bloc is the second largest Front partner since other allies like Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and Communist Party of India (CPI) account for 20 and eight seats respectively.
The Trinamool Congress, which is trying to woo Left constituents like the Forward Bloc and RSP, has 30 seats in the assembly.