Jharkhand CM runs into fresh controversy

Jharkhand Chief Minister Shibu Soren has run into a fresh controversy with one of his prominent detractors alleging that he has links with the supremo of an outlawed extremist outfit in the state.

Former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi is demanding a CBI inquiry into the matter in the wake of reports of one hardcore member of the Jharkhand Liberation Tigers (JLT) that Soren is in touch with the head of JLT.

Lorence Mundari alias Carlos after being caught by the police has claimed before the media that the Chief Minister and Dinesh Gope, supremo of his outfit, were in regular contact. JLT is splinter group of the outlawed CPI (Maoist) in the state.

The Chief Minister’s office, however, dismissed the allegations. Soren’s press advisor Shafique Ansari said, it’s an attempt to denigrate the image of Guruji, the name by which Chief Minister is popularly known.

The issue has, however, come in handy for the detractors of the Chief Minister, including Marandi who is MP from Koderma, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

Marandi told PTI that he will write to the Prime Minister and Home Minister seeking a CBI probe into the serious matter.

“There are several instances when extremists after being caught by the police have revealed their connections with various political leaders in the State but nothing has been done,” Marandi, who is also heading the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (P), said.

Controversies are not new to Soren who was accused in the JMM MPs bribery case and had also suffered imprisonment for some time in the Shashinath Jha murder case. He was, however, later acquitted by a higher court.

Marandi has been insisting that the Congress-led coalition at the Centre should not take the matter lightly as the issue is far more serious this time as the Chief Minister of the State has been charged with having connection with an extremist outfit.

Marandi, who has been the target of Maoists for spearheading a movement against them in his home district of Giridih, said Naxalism is the biggest threat to the internal security of the country.

Mineral-rich Jharkhand has witnessed naxalite violence with the ultras spreading their net far and wide in the State having sizeable population of tribals.

Marandi’s charge is that Chief Minister comes out with “contradictory statements” about naxalites. “On the one hand Soren claims there is no extremism in the state while on other he says extremists are his brothers. What does it indicate,” Marandi wondered.

He claimed that such statements by the Chief Minister was spreading a sense of insecurity among people of the state.

A BJP MLA Ragubar Das has demanded resignation of the Chief Minister and wants a narco analysis test be done of the extremist who has levelled the charge against Soren.

Jharkhand Maoists ask truckers to stop bauxite loading

Ranchi, Nov 2 (IANS) A Maoist group has asked truck owners not to load and ferry bauxite from the Lohardagga district of Jharkhand, police sources said Sunday.”Any trucker found ferrying bauxite will be punished,” said a police official quoting the poster issued as a diktat by Tritiya Prastuti Committee (TPC).
The poster asks truck owners to stop loading bauxite from Pakhar hills of Lohardagga district, around 90 km from here. The aluminium ore is loaded and taken to nearby railway station from where bauxite is dispatched to different places.

Reacting on the poster, a senior police official said: “The poster does not mention the reason. It seems that Maoist rebels are not getting levy from bauxite mining areas. We will provide full security to trucks and there will be no impact of posters on truck movement in the area.”

He said similar threats have been issued by Maoist rebels in the past. TPC is a breakaway group of Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) and is operating in over four to five districts of the state.  Maoist rebels are active in 18 of the 24 districts of the state

Red aid to villagers worries cops

Dumka, Nov. 2: The district administration was taken aback by the assault of five district mining personnel in the hands of villagers opposing private power plants.

But it is yet to make a strategy to counter the raising Naxalite interference in the anti-power project movements.

The villagers had reportedly assaulted the five district mining employees, who went to survey the progress of work at Pokharia, on October 31.

The villagers garlanded the mining personnel with shoes and sandals and took out a procession. The faces of the employees were painted black. Before the protesters set victims free, they made the mining staff lick soil.

The superintendent of police of Dumka, Arun Kumar Singh, said: “None of the victims have registered a complaint with us. Not only that, they refused to comment before reporters and even they did not inform the officer concerned in the department here. They rather preferred to keep mum on this issue.”

ATTACK ON PASWAN & BUDDHA: Security misses 1200m trigger wire

Calcutta, Nov. 2: Security sources said today’s blast by suspected Maoists in West Midnapore reflected lax security and patrolling in the area before a VIP visit.

Sources in the Intelligence Bureau (IB) said no sniffer dogs were used in the security operation before the visit by chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Union steel minister Ram Vilas Paswan and other VIPs to flag off JSW Bengal Steel. Nor was any bomb detection expert engaged.

Some other lapses cited by the security agencies were:

No senior officer was appointed to oversee night patrol

Police did not check ditches or fields on the route

IB did not build a source network involving villagers.

An officer of the rank of deputy superintendent or higher should have been tasked to check if policemen on night patrol were sleeping in their cars, a West Midnapore police officer said.

“The Special Security Force (SSF) was asked to keep round-the-clock vigil on the stretch of road leading to the plant. But there was no senior officer of DSP rank or above to oversee the night patrol,” the officer said.

Policemen on NH-60 after the blast. Picture by Swarup Mondal
Bomb disposal experts in the CID said the explosive device was probably planted last night. “The Naxalites used a 1,200m wire to detonate it. They planted the explosive and laid the wire neatly over a paddy field. It is clear they needed considerable time for the job, which raises questions about the night vigil,” another officer said.

The police checked the roads but not the ditches or paddy fields on the NH-60 route. A CID officer said: “The blast spot is 25km from the plant site. We checked the area close to the venue, but the areas on either side of the road near Midnapore town weren’t scanned well.”

The SSF, which looks after VIP security, took charge of affairs four days ago but failed to detect the device.

The blast also showed up the failure of the IB, which was supposed to build a source network by involving villagers. But officers hardly visited the villages, it was found.

The explosion occurred around 2.15pm near Midnapore town, barely 15 minutes after Bhattacharjee’s convoy crossed the spot. It went off near the lead pilot car of Paswan’s convoy, injuring six guards.

The IB sources said the chief minister’s convoy was the target. “As the explosive was detonated from 1,200m away, the attackers may have failed to identify the right convoy,” a source said.

The VIP visit to Salboni was announced over a month ago, protesting which the CPI (Maoists) called a strike 10 days back in West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia. Surya, the spokesperson for the outfit’s eastern regional bureau, issued a statement calling for armed resistance against the plant. “We treated the message like the others. We should have given it more importance,” an IB officer said.

Indian minister survives Maoist attack

W DELHI, India (CNN) — A federal minister escaped a landmine explosion set off by suspected Maoist rebels in West Bengal state in eastern India, police said Monday.

The explosion Sunday in the Midnapore district destroyed one vehicle that was part of Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan’s convoy, police said.

The minister was not hurt but the explosion wounded six police officers, said police superintendent Rajesh Kumar Singh.

Authorities arrested six suspected rebels in connection with the attack.

The rebels, known as the Naxalites, have been battling the government in several states in an insurgency that has resulted in thousands of casualties since the late 1960s. They claim to be fighting for the poor and the dispossessed.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the rebels India’s biggest security threat.

Last year, more than 800 people were killed in Naxal-related violence across the country, according to local media reports

Source: CNN, November 01, 2008