By IANS,
Lalgarh (West Bengal) : Security forces Saturday launched a multi-pronged attack on the Maoists and reclaimed the rebel stronghold of Ramgarh after marching through dense forests, defusing landmines, firing mortars and engaging in gunbattles with the leftwing extremists in West Bengal.
The rebels challenged the joint force of the central paramilitary troopers and state armed police by firing a hail of bullets in two forest stretches and torched an office of the All India Trade Union Congress – the trade union arm of West Bengal’s ruling Left Front constituent Communist Party of India (CPI) – before decamping from Ramgarh, 22 km from here.
The forces marched into the Ramgarh outpost, under Lalgarh police station, and set up a base camp there on the 10th day of the massive security operation launched by the West Bengal government to flush out Maoists from areas in and around Lalgarh, 200 km west of state capital Kolkata.
The rebels had torched the outpost and driven out the civil administration from the area June 15.
“The Maoists have fled the area. None of them are there now,” Inspector General of Police (Law and order) Raj Kanojia told IANS in Kolkata after the troopers’ successful two-day surge from Goaltore on the borders of West Midnapore and Bankura district to Ramgarh.
“We have reached Ramgarh. We will set up a camp and restore normalcy. The operations will be on. We hope the public will help us,” said Inspector General of Police (Operations) of the state’s Criminal Investigations Department S.N. Gupta, who led the forces during the nine-km trek that began Friday morning.
However, district superintendent of police Manoj Verma declined to spell out whether the forces have suffered any losses. “We will not give any such details. The operations will go on till the situation becomes completely normal.”
Lalgarh is the headquarters of Binpur-1 block under Jhargram sub-division. Ramgarh is a village under the same block.
The Maoists took position in the fields and jungles and rained bullets, but proved no match for the overwhelmingly superior firepower of the troopers.
One group of the forces moved from Kadasole village, where it had camped overnight after setting out from Goaltore, and marched through the Maoist-infested Mohultala forest, where the ultras fired from two sides but beat a retreat after the securitymen fired back.
The forces moved in a ‘V’ formation with the state’s armed police moving in double file on the main road and the paramilitary troopers giving them cover by moving through jungles on both sides of the road, looking for Maoists in nearby villages and identifying and defusing landmines. They reached Ramgarh at around 3.30 p.m. after trudging through the Tentultala forest.
Another team of securitymen moved out from the southern base camp at Lalgarh for Ramgarh, but came up against strong resistance at Amdanga close to another Maoist den of Chokhasole jungles.
Roads had been dug and trees felled to block the advancing forces, which found a Maoist poster asking people to avoid the area as landmines had been planted there.
Two low-intensity mines were found and defused. The security men crossed the jungle stretch and entered Pathardanga, the village of agitating tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato, but finally returned to Lalgarh after rebels fired from the jungle.
A third column of forces, meanwhile, moved from Sarenga in Bankura and sealed the district’s border with Lalgarh to pre-empt any possibility of the Maoists escaping through the area.
Police also set up camps at Kadashole, besides using the Central Reserve Police Force’s (CRPF) specialised anti-Maoist force Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) for intense combing and patrolling of the forests.
A tribal body, People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), backed by the Maoists, had since last November established virtual control over 42 villages in Lalgarh and surrounding areas where hundreds of Maoist extremists had virtually taken over the role of the state administration.
The troopers have already re-established the writ of the state in a majority of these villages.
Meanwhile, PCAPA chief Mahato addressed a large meeting at Kantapahari, another Maoist den close to Ramgarh, and urged the villagers to resist the forces without fleeing their homes.
Lalgarh has been on the boil since November when a landmine exploded on the route of the convoy of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and then central ministers Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitin Prasada.
Complaining of police atrocities after the blast, angry tribals backed by Maoists launched an agitation, virtually cutting off the area from the rest of West Midnapore district.
Maoists are active in areas under 21 police stations in the state’s three western districts – West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia.