They came, they saw and they brought Operation Lalgarh to a grinding, unwelcome halt.
After successfully taking over Lalgarh police station on Saturday, the combined forces of West Bengal armed police and central para-military troops were preparing on Sunday for the second and tougher phase of the operation — sanitisation of Maoist strongholds, when a group of intellectuals from Kolkata landed in the conflict zone to interact with villagers.
The team, represented by film-maker Aparna Sen, theatre personalities Shaoli Mitra and Kaushik Sen and poet Joy Goswami rushed to Lalgarh on a sweltering Sunday afternoon to stand shoulder-toshoulder with the villagers. The team members alleged that the villagers were being subjected to humiliation in the hands of the combined forces.
Earlier, Bengal chief secretary Ashoke Mohan Chakrabarty had requested them to
postpone their visit for security reasons.
The team met Chatradhar Mahato, head of Public Committee for Resistance against Police Atrocities, under which Maoists have been been operating in the region.
After the meeting, Aparna Sen told mediapersons, “We want peace and hence we are requesting both sides (security forces and Maoists) to put down their arms.”
To ensure the security of the visiting intellectuals, the combined forces had to stop their sanitising operations for the day. A senior police officer expressed his anguish over the sudden halt in the sanitising process “over such a trivial issue”. “The second phase of the operation is difficult and such visits make it complex. They should understand that we are operating against odds such as extreme heat, unknown terrain and poor intelligence inputs,” he said.
Defence experts criticised the intellectuals for their misadventure. Col Shaumitra Roy (retired) said such “activities dampen the spirit of combat operations”. “If they are in favour of peace they should send messages from Kolkata. In my opinion, this is nothing but a cheap publicity stunt,” he said.
Col J Chandra (retired) objected to Sen’s call for putting down of arms by both security forces and Maoist guerrillas. “The combined forces have taken up arms to protect law and order, whereas the Maoists have taken up arms to break the law. How, can she equate both?” he asked.
Two Union ministers of state Mukul Roy and Sishir Adhikari of Trinamool Congress also tried to reach Lalgarh. But when they reached Midnapore, police requested them not to proceed towards the conflict zone for security reasons. Though the ministers aired their discontent to the media, they did not force their way to Lalgarh.
