Kolkata, September 4
The controversy over the presence of the CPM’s armed camps in the Jangalmahal and Lalghar area took a new turn following the admission of the union home minister P.Chidambaram about the existence of these camps in the Maoists-inflected areas in west Midnapore.

The CPM’s attack on the journalists and photographers in the Jangalmahal area who went to cover the opening of a new cadres camps in the Dharampore area yesterday also added a new twist to the charges of the CPM’s existence of the cadres camps in the Lalghar-Jangalmahal area. The Congress, the TMC and the BJP today separately brought out protests and rallies against the attacks on the journalists in the Jangalmahal area. Chidambaram has already asked the state government to immediately dismantle these cadres camps from the areas. The state Governor N.R.Narayanan also made the same request to the Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

A Trinamool delegation led by the opposition leader Partha Chatterjee met the newly appointed DGP N Mukherjee with a list of the 93 cadres camps today, demanding their immediate dismantling when Dibakar Mahato, a primary school teacher at Garslaboni village, Jhargram had been picked up from the class and gunned down near the school premises. So far, Maoists did not claim they were behind the incident, though the police and the CPM had pointed finger at the Maoists.

The railway minister Mamata Banerjee had been alleging for so long the existence of some 90 cadres camps in the Jangalmahal and Lalghar area from where the CPM had been launching area-capturing drive with the help of the police and the joint action forces. The state Congress(l) president Manash Buiya, an MLA from west Midnapore was also making the same allegation.

But the chief minister and the CPM state secretary Biman Bose flatly denied the charges, alleging that these charges were false, baseless and politically motivated.

However, now when Chidambaram admitted they had the reports of the presence of the CPM’s camps at Jangalmahal and Lalghar, both Bhattacharjee and Bose came out in publicly criticising the home minister of making false statement for pleasing Mamata Banerjee for the largest interests of the UPA.

Chidambaram said he had brought the attention of the state chief minister to the existence of the cadres camps at Jangalmahal and Lalghar, asking the government for immediately dismantling these camps. The state governor K.R.Narayanan also made the same request to Bhattacharjee.

The TMC delegation which met the DGP today urged upon him for taking necessary steps in dismantling of these camps. Otherwise, the TMC will mobilize all other peace-loving people irrespective of their political and ideological differences, in these area for dismantling the CPI(M)’s camps, they warned.