Union home minister P Chidambaram today gave anxious moments to securitymen as he mingled with the crowd shortly after his arrival in the Naxal heartland and sought cooperation of the villagers in flushing out Maoists from the area.
"The Union home minister has sought our cooperation with the police in flushing out operations against the Maoists," the villagers, who live near the Lalgarh police station, said after Chidambaram mingled with them and enquired about their welfare.
Keeping the hordes of mediamen at bay, Chidambaram took to the road leading to the village after holding an hour-long meeting with high administrative and police officials at the Lalgarh police station and talked for sometime with them.
The home minister asked the policemen to allow the villagers to come to him and enquired about their day-to-day problems and their requirements.
"He (Chidambaram) told us that if we help the police in flushing out the Maoists, the government can take up or resume pending or suspended development project in our area," said Tamal Tudu, Bisakha Kamal, Anjali Roy and many others whom Chidambaram spoke to.
The villagers told reporters that they had informed Chidambaram of being "sandwiched" between the Maoists and the police.
"If we don't listen to the Maoists we will be harassed. It is the same with the police ... We have no alternative and are compelled to do what Maoists ask us to do. We are simple villagers and suffer from want of food," they said.
Saraswati Das, a twelve standard student, said she told the Union home minister that she could not appear for all papers of the on-going Higher Secondary examinations due to the Maoist-sponsored 28-day bandh in Lalgarh and her examination centre was at a far away school.
Housewives Bisakha, Anjali and Kakali said they tried to provide a list of problems faced by them to the "minister from Delhi".
"There is no road, electricity, drinking water and transportation facility. What is available is panic and terror. We urged the minister to help us come out of the crisis," they said.
