Saturday, December 1, 2007

Bihar: Another bandh call by Maoists

PATNA: Maoists have given a call for yet another bandh on December 2 to protest against "police loot and the arrest of their north Bihar-western zone secretary Bhaskar".

In a press note released here on Friday, the CPI (Maoist) said Saran, Tirhut and Champaran areas would observe bandh on December 2. It accused the police of "looting" its depot on November 22 and arresting Bhaskar, who was suffering from arthritis, when he was in the state
capital in connection with treatment. The Maoists in a separate press note claimed that the Special Task Force (STF) had arrested Bhaskar and another local supporter from the Agamkuan area in Patna and presented a distorted picture of the whole affair to the media. It denied there was any move by the Maoists to trigger explosions in the secretariat, assembly, jail or any other place in the state capital.

The Maoists said that contrary to the claim of the police, Bhaskar's associate Dhananjay had been arrested by STF even before November 22. They alleged the STF took away Bhaskar like kidnappers — by covering him and bundling him into an unnumbered jeep. Bhaskar was also
allegedly tortured.

The Maoists claimed the police's statement that a truckload of explosives had been recovered was aimed at "covering up the loot committed by policemen". The truck did not contain explosives as claimed by the police, they said adding it actually had a fan, bed sheets, sweaters, one bundle of cloth for trousers and another one for shirts, besides 200 trousers, inner wears, ayurvedic medicines andutensils. The truck also contained Naxalite literature and hard cash
to the tune of lakhs. The Maoists claimed that the STF jawans had "looted all this and then cooked up a story to hide this loot".

Times of India

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