It's official : Peoples' Militia formed in Lalgarh

It’s official : Poeples’ Militia formed in Lalgarh
Snigdhendu Bhattacharya
mail to: snigdhendub@gmail.com
Kolkata, October 27—It’s only official now. Peoples’ Militia, armed village guarding force, has been formed in Lalgarh in West Midnapore district of West Bengal.
So long, the Peoples’ Militia had been formed in large parts of Chhattisgarh, and parts of Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand. About one and half months ago HT had reported that the process of forming Peoples’ Militia, one of the integral part of a Maoist movement towards setting up “Base areas” and then turning them into“Liberated zones,” is on the way in Lalgarh and surrounding areas.
On Monday, the Peoples’ Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), declared that they have formed the “Sidhu Kanhu Gana Militia to combatthe combined force of the state and central government who are workingin tandem with the CPI(M) goons to gag protesting voice.”
But in the case of no other states the Peoples’ Militia was formed so quickly, within one year of the beginning of a movement. The PCAPA was formed only in last November.
Talking to HT on Tuesday, Asit Mahato, 45, the newly-elected spokesperson of the PCAPA, said, “We have been forced to take up arms.We tried to fight the CPI(M) goons and well as their stooge policemen with our traditional arms bows and arrows. But now the way they are attacking us with sophisticated arms, we have no other option but taking to arms. From now on, we would build up our own armoury by snatching arms from the CPI(M) goons.”
Mahato, however, did not declare anything about the strength of their militia. Mahato said that they decided to form the militia, named after most popular tribal leaders Sidhu and Kanhu who led the Santhal rebellion against the British rules, after a rally by the PCAPA was attacked by the combined force and the CPI(M) goons on Monday evening.
“Thevillagers snatched 10 one-shutter guns from them and killed five goons. This is the beginning of making our armoury. Henceforth we would continue to snatch arms from the CPI(M) goons to increase thestrength of our armoury.”
This statement came five days after CPI(Maoist) politburo member and a member of their central military commission, Koteswar Rao aliasKishanji, 51, declared that they would distribute all the arms seized from the raid at Sankrail police station among the villagers. “We would not keep a single arm seized from Sankrail police station. Allthe arms would be given to the local villagers to protect themselves.Even the money we seized from the SBI branch would be given to them for procuring ammunitions,” Kishanji had told HT.
The PCAPA leaders, however, denied any knowledge whether the Maoists have already distributed those arms among the people. “We have no links with the Maoists. So, we can’t say what they did with those arms. But we can say that now we have 20 guns in our armoury. All of them have been seized from the CPI(M) goons,” PCAPA general secretary Sidhu Soren told HT.
Interestingly, Kishanji had admitted to HT about one and half month ago that a section of the operations have been outsourced to local villagers.
“The villagers are taking action without our help. That’s why we did not claim responsibility of about 25 actions among the last 60 actions against the CPI(M) goons, as those were executed by the villagers, not our Peoples’ Liberation Guerilla Army (PLGA),” the topMaoist leader had told HT that time.
The abduction of police constables Sabir Ali and Kanchan Gorai was also such an operation led by the locals, he had said. Kishanji had also said that they have about two lakh village militia in Chhattisgarh.
Talking to media persons four days ago, he had also vowed to “Liberate” Lalgarh. Now, after the PCAPA’s declaration, it is the most prominent signal in the recent times that the tribal outfit is merging with the Maoists and that they have gained significant strength. EOM