Kolkata : The West Bengal government will soon announce its plan of action for tribal-dominated Lalgarh region of West Midnapore district, where a group of residents put up two check posts to prevent the police and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) workers from entering the area, a senior official said Saturday.
“We’ll announce our comprehensive plan of police action in West Midnapore’s Lalgarh but for that we need some more time. We are hopeful of announcing everything within a week,” state Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen told reporters here.
“We’ve got intelligence inputs that Maoists guerrillas are still actively operating in the region,” he added.
Sen had said last month the police would carry out a combing operation to sniff out Maoist rebels from the Lalgarh region before the Lok Sabha polls.
The check posts were put up by the members of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) at Raigarh and Barotelia area of Lalgarh.
“We’ve heard about this development… that two check posts were put up in two different places near Lalgarh to prevent the police force from entering the region,” West Midnapore Superintendent of Police R.K. Singh told IANS, adding that action would be taken against the PCAPA members.
PCAPA leader Chattrodhar Mahato said they were keeping a regular watch on these two check points to prevent the police or any “hooligans” from the state’s ruling CPI-M from entering their villages and planned to set up two more check posts for the purpose.
Trouble erupted in Lalgarh last November after the police arrested some school students and allegedly harassed tribal women after a landmine blast on the route of the convoy of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and central ministers Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitin Prasada near Bhadutala area.
Later, the tribals, allegedly backed by the Maoists, dug up roads and placed big tree trunks across them, virtually cutting off the trouble-prone zone from the rest of the district.
They also demanded a public apology from the police for the alleged excesses committed against them.