Buddha, Mishra hit out at govt on law and order

MIDNAPORE: Anti-socials are having a free run in Kolkata and suburbs for the past few months. “They believe that their government is now in power, so nothing will happen to them,” former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said on Wednesday, while addressing a party rally at Midnapore College grounds on the concluding day of the CPM’s West Midnapore district party conference.

The veteran CPM leader came down on the government for its “failure on all fronts”.

Former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Wednesday launched a scathing attack on Mamata Banerjee government that found a more shaper resonance in Assembly Opposition leader Surjya Kanta Mishra. Bhattacharjee chided the government on its “failure on all fronts” but singled out the free run of anti-socials in Kolkata and its suburbs for his sharpest attack. “The anti-socials now believe their government is now in power, so nothing will happen to them,” he said.

Apart from Bhattacharjee, Surjya Kanta Mishra and Left Front chairman Biman Bose addressed the rally. Dipak Sarkar was re-elected as its secretary, and found a place for all senior leaders absconding either in the Garbeta skeleton case and Netai carnage.

“The clubs have benefited from a government largesse, where is this money coming from? The government claims it’s cash-strapped only when it comes to buying rice and paddy from farmers and paying salary and pension to transport employees. It has enough to increase the salaries of ministers from Rs 7,000 to Rs 27,000,” the former chief minister said.

Bhattacharjee said the spate of murders and violence unleashed against CPM leaders and supporters can’t wipe out the party. “People wanted change, and there was change. People will again decide which path they want the political parties to tread. They are also noticing where we left eight months ago, and it has come to what,” he said.

Mishra said, “The Calcutta high court had granted bail to Sushanta Ghosh. The government still arrested him in a different case. They are repeatedly opposing the bail in Supreme Court. I have told the chief minister the behavior meted out to Ghosh’s elderly mother is unacceptable. In the 34 years, we’ve been in power not a single Trinamool MLA has been arrested.”

Without naming Mamata, Mishra said: “There were enough incidents where she had provoked unrest. We remained patient. All these are recorded. The police director-general now sends a missive claiming CPM is attacking Trinamool. Did he bother to find out? There is a provision for a security commission, which, according to Supreme Court guidelines, has to accommodate opposition MLAs too. Nothing has happened. We will not indefinitely, we will seek answers in the February 19 rally at Brigade.”

Harping on Trinamool’s alleged Maoist links, Bose said: “The apple of their eye has now become an eyesore. If they believe violence is the only way to end CPM, they are living in fool’s paradise.”

Regarding the Nandigram incident, Bhattacharjee, too said Trinamool was hand in gloves with Maoists, had burnt people alive, cut roads and refused to let police in. “We were trying to create a second Haldia there,” he said.

State urban development minister Firhad Hakim said, “The manner in which they are attacking the government is misleading. People are not with them; they are with us and chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Why are they speaking on law and order now? Where was their voice in Nandigram and Netai’s aftermath? Government will not spare any murderer. If speaks of tremendous restraint by our party workers that nothing was done to the likes of Tapan, Sukur and Sushanta. The government will follow the legal route.”

Absconders in CPM district committee

Midnapore: Dipak Sarkar was re-elected as CPM’s West Mindapore district secretary for the seventh time. The 72-year-old CPM leader had been holding this post since 1992.

This time the district committee comprises 70 party members, including eight new faces. Sushanta Ghosh who is in jail for his alleged involvement in the Garbeta skeleton case was also retained, along with Tarun Roy, who is absconding in the same case. Other absconders who found place in the district committee are Ahmed Ali, Manik Sengupta, Shyam Pandey and Meghnad Bhunia. Fullora Mondal and Anuj Pandey who are absconding for their alleged involvement in Netai case were also retained along with Sukur Ali and Tapan Ghosh who had been chargesheeted in Nandigram case.

CPM state secretary Biman Bose said party members were implicated in fabricated cases. “I am yet to get a copy of the chargesheet filed in the Nandigram case. Over 250 cadres had been killed since 2007.

There is a conspiracy going on against us and we shall overcome it.” He also criticized baby deaths and wanted more health employees to improve health infrastructure. “We are also condemning the arrest of Dr Mani Chhetri. He is 93 and is a well known doctor of the country.”

He also lashed out at the government for series of peasant suicide and said that the paddy purchase was not taking place.

Fire victims bank on government rehabilitation

KOLKATA: A day after 150 shanties at Kalikapur were gutted in a devastating fire, the homeless families were seen haplessly wandering about, looking for anything they could salvage from the ashes.

Most residents of the slum near Ruby Hospital along EM Bypass are banking on the promises of rehabilitation packages poured out by visiting ministers and other political leaders since Sunday night. Some, though, are skeptical about these assurances and say they face an uncertain future.

“We looked for hours, but could not find anything. All our post office books, bank papers… everything is gone. We do not know what lies in store for us,” said Prabhat Barman, a rickshaw-puller who lost his house in the fire. Like Barman, hundreds of others searched in vain for important documents in what they had called home for 15 years, but now lay in a heap of ashes. Almost everyone had the same tale of despair.

Aloka Devi set out from her native village the moment she saw television footage of flames in her slum. When she reached in the early hours of Monday, she found her shanty still smouldering. “She is completely inconsolable and cried all day as she sat where her house stood till even 24 hours ago,” said a neighbour.

Some dwellers displayed presence of mind on Sunday night by throwing some belongings in the nearby pond the moment they spotted flames spreading across the slum. But some of them were dismayed to find that their belongings had been stolen even from the water. Some others, though, did manage to retrieve what they had thrown into the water.

Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has set up a relief camp that serves as a temporary shelter for dwellers rendered homeless. Victims housed in the camp near the slum have been provided with plastic sheets and blankets. Several NGOs have also come forward to help the homeless with warm clothes, schoolbags for children and other relief material,” said an NGO volunteer. Other NGOs are providing the homeless with food.

Mayor Sovan Chatterjee, who visited the spot on Monday, said all arrangements were being made for the victims. “We are working out ways to rehabilitate the slum-dwellers,” he said. Power minister Manish Gupta, who also visited the spot, said the government will try to give the victims new ration cards.

CPM leader and former minister Kanti Ganguly also went to the sspot. “Many of these people came from Sunderbans and have been living here for years. Hopefully, the government will work out a plan for them,” he said.

The land on which the 1,000-odd slum-dwellers lived belongs to the state government. There are many such slum-dwellers living nearby at Nonadanga.

No fresh hawkers in city, vows CM

KOLKATA: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday promised not to allow any fresh encroachments of the city’s pavements after she personally intervened to stop fresh takeover of a sidewalk near SSKM Hospital. Mamata was irked after hawkers protesting their eviction blocked roads for an hour. The roadblock left the officebound traffic in the city’s south paralyzed.

Mamata, on her way to the Writers’ , stopped at Elgin Road – media in tow – to resolve the impasse. “I saw a roadblock near SSKM hospital . At the behest of a CPM leader, hawkers had encroached at least eight to 10 places there waving red flags. How can encroachment happen ? There is a school and a hospital there. If fire tenders are to reach in case of any emergency, they can barely move,” she said. The CM alleged a few people were making money in the name of “Sangram Committee.”

Office-goers held up by hawkers’ protest

KOLKATA: About 150-odd hawkers, who eke out a living on the small stretch of Harish Mukherjee Road and in places between Elgin Road and AJC Bose Road, are either affiliated to the Citu-affiliated Calcutta Street Hawkers Association or the Hawker Sangram Committee. They primarily flank the pavement right opposite the SSKM hospital . During Subrata Mukherjee’s tenure as Kolkata mayor, the KMC had convinced the hawkers – who encroached both sides of the road then – to leave out the pavement leading to the hospital gates. An exception was made for a few fruit vendors at the Asutosh Mukherjee Road-Elgin Road crossing. These hawkers claimed they were given identify cards and listed in KMC records.

Babu Mondal, 37, a hawker who sells fruit at the spot said he’d been doing business there since he was 13 years old. A Citu member, he claimed that on Monday afternoon the Bhowanipore police had told them to clear out their makeshift stalls for beautification work on the pavements. “We told them the union had asked us to stay put till they sorted out the matter ,” Mondal said. The Police were back on Tuesday morning , first urging and then forcing the hawkers to remove their stalls. Firoz Ahmed, a Hawker Sangram Committee cardholder, claimed he had been selling clothes on this footpath for the last decade. “How can we suddenly move out?”

The police action prompted all hawkers, irrespective of their political affiliations, to squat on the street in protest. The ripples of the standoff were felt in far-off Kalighat as traffic police failed miserably to divert rush hour traffic through the feeder roads into Ashutosh Mukherjee Road.

Mamata’s arguments, however, was disputed by Assembly opposition leader Surjya Kanta Mishra and Hawker Sangram Committee president Shaktiman Ghosh. Mishra said they were there since long.