CPM dubs Mamata's rule as year of violence, crime

Kolkata: The CPI(M) on Friday dubbed the completion of a year's rule of the Mamata Banerjee government as 'a year of violence and crime'. The Marxists, in a statement, alleged that killings, arson, rape, molestation, assaults on women, extortion and eviction had become a matter of daily occurrence.

"This is not something the people of Bengal had bargained for when the Trinamool Congress raised the slogan of 'paribartan' (change) to end 34 years of uninterrupted reign of the Left Front," the party said.

The CPI(M) alleged that between May 14 last year and May 12 this year witnessed 65 Left Front leaders, workers and supporters had been killed and 4,904 persons injured. It also alleged that 23 rapes were committed, 53 peasants committed suicide and 40,124 were evicted.

It claimed that 3293 persons arrested on false and fabricated cases and arms planted in houses of partymen and offices and subsequent 'recoveries' reported in raids.

It alleged that 611 CPI(M) offices were captured, besides 217 of mass organisations, while 14 party conferences were attacked.

Whenever the incidents were brought to the notice of the chief minister, "she dubbed them as being politically motivated or fabricated," it said.

It claimed that the people had begun comparing the current dispensation with dark days of the seventies, when the state witnessed 'semi-fascist terror'.

The party said that such was the 'intolerance' that an innocuous act of forwarding an email containing a caricature of the chief minister saw a university professor, Ambikesh Mahapatra landing behind bars.

The party was also critical of the arrest and jailing of microbiologist Partha Sarathi Roy for taking part in a 'peaceful demonstration' against eviction of slum dwellers at Nonadanga.

Newspapers and periodicals that a library could subscribe to were also listed, the party said. A planned and systematic attack on land reforms implemented during the Left Front rule was also underway it alleged claiming that 26,838 patta holders and bargardars who had received tenancy rights during the tenure of LF government were evicted and 3,418 peasants not allowed to cultivate their own land.