West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday asked Maoists to join the mainstream by laying down arms and promised that her government would provide them compensation and take care of their families.
G M Rao is looking for his son-in-law, who was in the S-3 compartment of the ill-fated Mumbai-bound Gyaneshwari Express, which derailed near Jhargram in West Midnapore district in West Bengal on Friday morning.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday set a seven-day deadline for Maoists to lay down their arms, saying violence would not be tolerated any more. "I am giving you (Maoists) a seven-day ultimatum to lay down guns. Think over it. We will not tolerate any more violence. Killings and negotiations cannot go hand in hand," she told a rally in Jhargram.
The IMD has also issued a red-coded warning alert to the Odisha and West Bengal coasts.
West Bengal and Odisha have evacuated lakhs of people from vulnerable areas to safety as severe cyclonic storm 'Yaas' is nearing the coast and is expected to make landfall near Dhamra Port in Bhadrak district early on Wednesday morning.
Women in Birhandi village of West Bengal's West Midnapore District lodged a complaint on Saturday with the sub divisional officer at Jhargram, accusing security personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force of sexually assaulting them.Corroborating their charges, several villagers claimed that paramilitary forces tortured them during the anti-Maoist operations and they allegedly raped ten women in the village.
Suspected Maoists on Friday night blew up a community hall in Bandhgora village in Jhargram, police said.
Three TMC leaders Amit Mitra, Bratya Basu and Rathin Ghosh were sworn-in virtually. Mitra is unwell and both Basu and Ghosh are recuperating from COVID-19.
It's a political gambit aimed at the BJP's Suvendu Adhikari who won the seat in 2016 as a TMC candidate, while also retroceding to the land movement that catapulted her to power.
Rediff.com's Sanchari Bhattacharya visits Jhargram and Jungle Mahal, one of the most volatile areas of poll-bound West Bengal, and tries to figure out whether the 'winds of change' would blow away 'the red bastions'.
Rediff.com's Sanchari Bhattacharya visits Jhargram and Jungle Mahal, one of the most volatile areas of poll-bound West Bengal, and tries to figure out whether the 'winds of change' would blow away 'the red bastions.'
Suspected Maoists have killed four political party workers separately in the Jhargram sub-division of West Midnapore district, police said on Friday.
In a major breakthrough, the joint forces killed top-ranking Maoist leader Sasadhar Mahato and arrested a person at Kapgari in the Jamboni police station area in West Midnapore district.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested an activist of the Maoist-backed People's Committee Against Police Atrocities from a village in Jhargram in connection with the Gyaneswari Express derailment, the police said on Tuesday.
Train services in the Kharagpur-Tatanagar section of South Eastern Railway were suspended on Wednesay after the railways received information that Maoists might target Mumbai-Howrah Duronto Express.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again led the BJP's campaign holding several rallies and stepping up his attack on Opposition parties, particularly the Congress.
People's Committee Against Police Atrocities leader and one of the prime accused in the Jnaneswari Express derailment Bapi Mahato was arrested on Sunday by West Bengal police from Jamshedpur, a senior police officer said.
For the first time ever in the history of the Indian Railways, the Indian Air Force was used for rescuing victims at Jhargram heralding a new era in rescue operations at rail accidents sites.
With the Maoists striking once again, Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday accused the government of lacking "will power" to fight Naxals in a firm manner and suggested that all parties should be consulted on dealing with the challenge, which is assuming enormous proportions.
Mangled heaps of bogies lying off the tracks, passengers in bandages and plasters and a row of hearse vans lined up -- the scene at the site of the derailment of the Mumbai-bound Gyaneshwari Express near Jhargram virtually resembled a war zone.
Maoists blew up a building housing the office of a farmers' organisation and set afire a community hall in Jhargram sub-division of West Midnapore district early on Friday.
Maoists on Thursday called for a 48-hour bandh in West Bengal, Jharkhand and Orissa from April 26 in support of their demand for producing four of their arrested cadre before court. Chandrasekhar, Rajen, Krishna and Rajesh were arrested by security forces between April 14 and April 15 from different areas in Jhargram subdivision of West Midnapore district, but have not been produced in court, a Maoist leader claimed.
Ending uncertainty and suspense, the Maoists have released Atindranath Dutta, the police officer, whom they abducted last week.
Adhikari, the face of the Nandigram movement that catapulated Mamata Bannerjee to power in 2011, sent his resignation letter to the chief minister by fax, which he then forwarded to Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar by e-mail.
The list, which is a mix of seasoned political players and greenhorns, has 17 women candidates, five more than the last elections, constituting roughly 41 per cent of the candidates.
Suspected Maoists triggered a landmine blast on a railway track near Jhargram in West Midnapore district on Wednesday, injuring two drivers of a goods train and leaving the engine of the freight train damaged.
Maoists killed a man in West Bengal and set off a blast partially damaging tracks in Bihar on the second day of their two-day bandh in six states.
The First Information Report that was filed against the hijackers of the Rajdhani Express doesn't mention the role played by the Maoists or the armed wing of the People's Committee Against Police Atrocities, both of which claimed responsibility for the incident.The FIR filed by railway authorities in West Midnapore's Rajdhani hostage case is being seen as a move to shield the Maoists. The FIR was lodged with the Jhargram Government Railway Police.
Passengers of the Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani Express had a harrowing time on Tuesday, when armed tribal agitators halted their train, smashed glass panes of the AC compartments and forcibly opened the doors, before taking away the drivers, at Banstala in Maoist-infested West Midnapore district. "The train had just crossed Jhargram Station and was passing through a densely forested patch when a large mob attacked it with stones," recalled a passenger.
Tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato has refused to give a sample of his handwriting to a local court in Midnapore.
Rejecting Mamata Banerjee's call to lay down arms before talks, elusive Maoist leader Kishenji on Monday said the Trinamool Congress chief was "welcome without the police".
Joining the rescue operations, the Indian Air Force pressed a Chetak and two medium-lift MI-17 helicopters from Kalikunda air base on Friday to assist relief work at the site of the train derailment in Jhargram in West Bengal.
As the West Bengal chief minister was busy containing the fallout of an internecine feud in her TMC following a rebellion by a redoubtable Suvendu Adhikari, the Centre shot off a fresh letter to her government to immediately relieve three IPS officers for central deputation.
The brewing discontentment in the party may adversely impact the TMC's prospects in the next assembly polls due in April-May next year.
Normal life was affected for the second day on Tuesday in West Bengal's Maoist-infested districts of West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura during the 48-hour bandh called by the ultras in five states to protest the offensive by security forces against Naxalites in Lalgarh.
In a surprise attack by the Maoists, four security personnel were killed and their arms looted in Jhargram sub-division of Naxal affected West Midnapore district on Sunday.
The location of the landfall is north of Dhamra and south of Bahanaga, close to Bahanaga block, on the coast, around 50 km of Balasore, he said.
Scattered incidents of violence, including torching of buses and clashes, occurred and 1,600 people were arrested during the 12-hour bandh.
With these states imposing lockdowns anew, the health ministry emphasised that the restrictions should be utilised to focus on containment, surveillance and testing in the containment and buffer zones as the key strategy for early detection of cases and fatality management.
Results of the panchayat polls indicated a paradigm shift in state politics with the baton of main opposition party passing from the Left to the BJP.
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