Kolkata, April 14: Railway minister Mamata Banerjee, who is opposing anti-Maoist operations in West Midnapore, today asked whether home minister P Chidambaram was aware of “arms training camps run by the ruling CPI(M)” in the district and what he had done about it.
“My question to Chidambaram is what is happening in the name of joint operations? It is not an operation against Maoists. It is an operation against the people. Is it the aim of the joint operation to help CPI(M) to regain lost ground?”
“The operation is going on to kill opposition party activists to create a reign of terror by the CPI-M which wants to cling to power,” she told reporters here.
“CPI-M is running 200 arms training camps. Union home ministry has its own agency. Has it not come to your knowledge? If it is in your knowledge, what have you done?” Banerjee said.
On the circular issued by prime minister Manmohan Singh that only the Union Home minister would speak on Maoist activities, Banerjee said she was speaking as a political leader on the situation.
“PM is correct from his point. He did not say that the government would kill people,” she said alleging that camps were being run at Enayatpur, Manidaha, Kangsabati, Salbani, Kashijhora, Andharia and Goaltore in West Midnapore to train CPI-M cadre to handle sophisticated arms.
Alleging that CPI-M minister Sushanta Ghose and the party’s West Midnapore district secretary Dipak Sarkar were controlling the joint operations, Banerjee said 300 people were unable to enter their homes in Goaltore.
“Mr Chidambaram, have you allowed the CPI-M to set up camps? Why is it happening?” she asked.
Reiterating her party’s stand, she demanded that the joint operations should be withdrawn.
The Trinamool Congress chief said that she was not a supporter of Maoists. “We are against individual killing. Maoists alsothreatened to kill me. They were killing our workers.”
She said that the CPI-M killed 60 TC activists in last three months since January. “They left Maoist flags beside the bodies. Maoist literature can be found if CPI(M) offices are raided.”
Banerjee claimed that foreign arms were coming from Nepal, Munger in Bihar and through the Indo-Bangla border and those who supplied it have links with CPI-M.
Arms were being transported by prison vans and zilla parishad vehicles, she alleged.
Banerjee said even chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has admitted that 3,200 people were killed including 800 political activists.
TC would organise meetings on April 16 to protest the terror and reply to the CPI-M in a language understood by it, she warned.
–Agencies