Lalgarh June 29: Security forces on Monday reclaimed the Maoist den of Kantapahari and entered the headquarters of protesting tribals around this area of West Midnapore district. The rebels tried to resist by exchanging fire with the troops.
Around 1600 personnel of paramilitary forces, police and CoBRA, the special anti-naxal force, reached Kantapahari from both Lalgarh and Ramgarh ends as a helicopter kept an aerial vigil.
The security forces have now decisively established their presence in the area, marking the return of the writ of the state in an arc surrounding Lalgarh to complete the first phase of operations launched June 18 to flush out Maoists.
While one group of central and state armed forces moved from Lalgarh in the south and retook Kantapahari, other troopers moved from Ramgarh in the north to march into Barapelia village – the hub of the Maoist-backed People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA).
The PCAPA had virtually made Lalgarh a ‘free zone’ for the last seven months by torching police camps and driving out the civil administration.
The Maoists set off a landmine and fired at the security forces in a forested area between Pirakata and Lalgarh but the troops retaliated.
DIG CID (Special Operations Group) Siddhinath Gupta said here that the forces were now in full control of Kantapahari. A police camp had existed here till 2005 but was withdrawn. “A camp will be set up here after all these years.”
In Kolkata, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee informed that the joint forces had been able to liberate nearly 95 per cent of the areas. The operations had been bloodless with no major encounter.
Security forces reached Boropelia village, home of People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities convenor Chhatradhar Mahato, leader of the group spearheading the agitation, but he remained elusive. He had been spotted in Kantapahari yesterday. However, police were confident that they will soon arrest him soon.
A senior police officer said on condition of anonymity that the top Maoist leaders like Koteshawar Rao and Bikash seemed to have fled the area
The entire leadership of the PCAPA, including its supremo Chhatradhar Mahato, have gone underground and police have launched a manhunt to track them down.
“Villagers have helped and cooperated with us. And we hope we will get cooperation from them in the coming days also,” Siddhinath Gupta, the state police’s Deputy Inspector General (Operations) of the Criminal Investigation Department, who led the forces from Ramgarh, told reporters at Kantapahari.
The PCAPA and the Maoists had since last November established virtual control over 42 villages in Lalgarh and surrounding areas where hundreds of Maoist extremists had virtually taken over the role of the state administration.
Lalgarh has been on the boil since November when a landmine exploded on the route of the convoy of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and then central ministers Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitin Prasada.
Complaining of police atrocities after the blast, angry tribals backed by Maoists launched an agitation, virtually cutting off the area from the rest of West Midnapore district.
Maoists are active in areas under 21 police stations in the state’s three western districts – West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia.
—Agencies