In a surprise Naxalite blitz, 67 guns snatched from licensed gun-owners in West Bengal

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun": thus ran the oft-quoted Maoist sermon, painted in big letters, on the street walls of embattled Calcutta during the years of Naxalite terror (1969-71). A full decade has gone by and the letters have faded, but not the spirit.Recently, in what officials describe as a surprise Naxalite blitz, 67 guns were snatched in just one night from as many licensed gun-owners in West Dinajpur district of West Bengal. The district is strategically located along the chicken's neck in northern West Bengal leading up to the Dooars forests. It is wedged between Bihar and Bangladesh, while the Nepal border is quite near. At Naxalbari, a couple of hours drive from the affected area, the first fire of the Naxalite rebellion was lit in April 1967.The gun - snatchers operated with clockwork precision. The incidents were confined to just three police station areas - Kusmundi, Itahar and Bangsibihari - of just one subdivision - Raiganj - in the the entire district. Of the 67 guns looted, as many as 48 were from Itahar. In fact, all the 48 guns were looted from just two blocks of Itahar - Patirajpur and Syedpur. The whole area of operation, spread over the three police station areas, is only 26 square kilometres.Easy Loot: The villagers put up surprisingly low resistance to the gun-snatchers. Only one villager was reportedly killed in trying to resist the robbers; but later reports indicated that his murder was due to a mistaken identity: he had been confused with his brother who is a big land-owner and hence the target of Naxalite attacks.In each case, it was a cakewalk for the gun-snatchers. They broke into the house at about 11 p.m., burst a few crackers to strike terror, got the gun at the point of a dagger, and disappeared. None of the 67 gun-owners fired a single shot in self-defence. None made an attempt to chase the marauders after they had escaped.The police moved in 24 hours later even though the affected villages are fairly well connected by roads. Five guns were recovered after a week-long search, but the others could not be traced even after three weeks of combing operations.However, the incident, and the consequent attention paid to the strange political goings-on in the area by government agencies, brought to light certain interesting facts. The state police admitted, for the first time, that the 30 murders which had taken place in the area since January 1980, so far described as non-political, were indeed political. The officials described the killers as Naxalites belonging to the "pro-Lin Biao and pro-Charu Mazumdar" faction. This faction never accepted the line taken by the 10th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party which condemned the powerful former Chinese defence minister. Lin Biao, as a traitor. Similarly, the faction stuck to the maxim of physical annihilation of "class enemies" propounded by the late Charu Mazumdar.Parallel Government: It was also revealed that the Naxalites, operating under "tec" names (communist code-word, meaning technical cells, or small groups, performing specific tasks under assumed names), were on the way to installing a parallel administration in the area, pompously named the Provisional Revolutionary Government. Last September, the police accidentally stumbled on a clue which led to the discovery of a subterranean bunker, 20 sq feet in area and an elaborate underground postal system operating under the nose of the district administration.All the while, wealthy jatedars (landowners) were being killed in the area. In one incident, the villagers got hold of an assailant and lynched him. The Naxalites promptly retaliated with three murders, and immortalised the name of their deceased comrade - Shyam Hansda - by renaming a big village as "Shyamnagar" The name has stuck.However, the entire Naxalite strategy changed last June when they began to kill the local dacoits and other "lumpens". In five months, 11 dacoits and "listed criminals" were killed by the Naxalites. The particular stretch of West Dinajpur is notorious for highway hold-ups, daylight robberies and general lawlessness.These revelations have thrown the state Home Department into visible panic. At an administrative level, the officials fear that the "pro-Lin pro-Charu" group might have already established bases in various areas. "Like poisonous weed, they grow faster than you can hack them down," said a hardpressed state intelligence officer.Tough Measures:In 1972, the Naxalite rebellion could be suppressed in West Bengal because the state police machinery, led by Ranjit Gupta, the erstwhile inspector-general of police, took tough measures ranging from fine-combing of villages to gunning down suspects in "encounters". But the present Marxist-led Left Front Government, which is pledged not even to apply the National Security Act in the state, may find itself ill-equipped to deal with the Naxalites.At a political level, Jyoti Basu, the chief minister, has reasons to feel shaky. The state Congress(I) has already made political capital out of the gun-snatching episode. Said Ajit Panja, the irrepressible state president: "The talk of Naxalites being involved is an eye-wash. It has been done by a ginger group within the Marxists which is led by Promode." His irreverent reference is to Promode Dasgupta, the state secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist and its iron man.The implication of Panja's charge is that the Marxists, or at least its "ginger group", are hoarding arms to prepare themselves for a possible show-down with the Congress(I) after the Left Front Government is dismissed.Meanwhile, 2,000 armed men of Eastern Frontier Rifles, a state force, and the State Armed Police have been deployed in the area. Hundreds of villagers are being interrogated every day, but the cops, unable to achieve any major successes, are busy whitewashing the fiery Naxalite graffiti on walls. It seems certain that fresh troubles will grow out of the barrels of the 62 guns that are still missing, even if political power does not.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Nov 25, 2013 13:23 IST--- ENDS ---

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In a surprise Naxalite blitz, 67 guns snatched from licensed gun-owners in West Bengal

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun": thus ran the oft-quoted Maoist sermon, painted in big letters, on the street walls of embattled Calcutta during the years of Naxalite terror (1969-71). A full decade has gone by and the letters have faded, but not the spirit.

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