Alert against Maoists in three Bengal districts

Kolkata, Dec 17 - Alarmed over the jailbreak by Maoist inmates in a Chhattisgarh jail, the West Bengal government Monday sounded an alert in all three Maoist-affected districts - Bankura, Purulia and West Midnapore - against a possible attack by the rebels.

'We have alerted Bankura, Purulia and West Midnapore districts, which share border with Jharkhand,' Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy told reporters at the state secretariat Writers' Building.To a query, he said: 'The state government has no plan yet to declare the Maoists as a banned organisation in West Bengal.' On the Maoist posters found plastered on the gate of Writers' Building on Thursday night, Roy said: 'The police are investigating how the Maoists managed to come there and paste posters since the area is prohibited to outsiders.'City police commissioner Gautam Mohon Chakraborty said the police were probing the matter and also the role of the police officials on duty at the time.

Four constables on duty that night at gate No.1 of Writers' Building have been suspended. Maoist posters condemning the violence in Nandigram were found on the walls of the high-security state secretariat.The posters blamed Chief Minster Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Left Front chairman Biman Bose and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo member Binoy Konar for the March 14 police firing in Nandigram in which 14 people were killed.

Earth Times