Kolkata, December 31
In a daring attack, MCC and PWG guerrillas gunned down the CPI(M) zonal committee secretary, Mr Rabindranath Kar, and his wife early this morning at Bhomragar village of Banduan in Purulia district, 250 km from here.
They also burnt their bodies inside the house, which was set on fire.
The guerrillas blew up the nearby Kuchapara police camp with landmines and looted a large number of LMGs, automatic rifles, revolvers and a huge stock of bullets before leaving the village.
The militants reportedly fired indiscriminately from AK-47 rifles. The police had set up the camp for protecting people against the guerrilla attacks in the Bengal-Bihar border areas.
This was the fourth such attack by Maoists and the People’s war group (PWG) in the Bengal-Bihar border belt in the past six months.
In the last two incidents nine police personnel, including the officer in charge of Banduan, were killed.
In another incident, three CPI(M) workers were killed inside their party office while holding a meeting on how to fight the militants.
In today’s incident, no one could be arrested. A large contingent of the CRPF and the Rapid Action Squad personnel has been sent to the trouble spot for conducting combing operations.
Senior police officials, including the DIG, South Bengal, rushed to the district from Kolkata on the instructions of the Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, now touring North Bengal.
The Purulia district committee of the CPI(M) observed a 12-hour bandh in the district, protesting against the killing of Mr Kar and his wife.
The CPI(M) leaders demanded adequate security for the people in the area, alleging that so far police arrangements had proved inadequate.
According to reports reaching the state government at Writers Buildings, about 100 MCC and PWG guerrillas armed with AK-47 and other weapons raided Mr Kar’s house at Banduan and killed him and his wife.
The attack was so sudden that neither of them could raise the alarm.
Before leaving the place, the guerrillas threw leaflets and hand bills warning the CPI(M) that they would “fight to the last drop of their blood for freeing the common people from the clutches of the CPI(M) bourgeois, ruining the state for vested interests”.
