Government sees Maoists' hand in Bhangar violence

Kolkata: Maoists and former students of Jadavpur University have not only infiltrated the Bhangar anti-power substation movement but they have incited the villagers, the state education minister and Trinamul Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee said Tuesday.

“We have received information that outsiders have been trying to incite the villagers against the power project. The power grid is being set up to supply electricity to the people living in the region. If the villagers themselves do not want it then of course we will not go ahead with it,” Mr Chatterjee said Tuesday.

He said the government wants to undertake development work, but it would never do so at the cost of the people’s interest. “What are a group of Maoists and former Jadavpur University students doing in Bhangar?” he asked.

According to Mr Chatterjee, the villagers may have opposed the power grid but no one had demanded the return of their land. “It is not the farmers but these outsiders who may have raised this demand,” he claimed.

Nabanna sources said that after reviewing the Bhangar violence, the chief minister on Tuesday evening decided to send some senior Kolkata police officers to the area. “These officers will be able to easily spot the Maoists and their sympathisers from JU,” sources added.

Sources said the movement, led by Jami, Jibika, Poribesh O Bastutantra Raksha Committee (Committee to secure Land, Livelihood, Environment and Ecosystem), is actually an outfit in which several “outsiders” who are highly articulate are present.

Significantly, when Singur and Nandigram movements were at their peak, the then Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government had repeatedly accused Ms Banerjee, who was spearheading these movements, of taking help from Maoists.