Barely a month to go for the elections. Yet, an eerie silence pervades Belpahari. People talk in hushed tones, fear writ large on their faces. No heated debates, rallies or public meetings. Not even a graffiti scrawled or poster plastered on the walls.
Welcome to the Naxalite heartland. This is one place in West Bengal where the mere mention of elections may earn you a bullet. The Belpahari police station is armed to the teeth. CRPF personnel, SLRs in hand and faces covered with black cloth, get on to four trucks. They are on their way to a combing operation “somewhere in the forests of Banspahari”.
Only three days ago, they had met a band of armed Peoples’ War activists — some 20 of them — at Banspahari itself. “Instead of challenging the Naxalites, we turned our backs and returned to the police station,” said one of the drivers. “These paramilitary men look ferocious. But the mine blasts have terrified them” Behind the three trucks lie the remains of a jeep blown to pieces by a PW landmine.
Barely five km from the Belpahari police station is the forest hamlet Odolchua. The only school here has closed its doors to students to house some 400 CRPF and BSF personnel. Last month, Naxalites put up posters on its walls asking the police to leave immediately so that classes could resume. The paramilitary personnel meekly obliged. Belpahari BDO Debasis Bej is a worried man; he is having a tough time preparing the list of polling personnel. No government employee wants to man the polling booths anywhere in the Belpahari-Banspahari region. The fear of PW and MCC, who have jointly called for a poll boycott, is all-pervading.
{{/usCountry}}Barely five km from the Belpahari police station is the forest hamlet Odolchua. The only school here has closed its doors to students to house some 400 CRPF and BSF personnel. Last month, Naxalites put up posters on its walls asking the police to leave immediately so that classes could resume. The paramilitary personnel meekly obliged. Belpahari BDO Debasis Bej is a worried man; he is having a tough time preparing the list of polling personnel. No government employee wants to man the polling booths anywhere in the Belpahari-Banspahari region. The fear of PW and MCC, who have jointly called for a poll boycott, is all-pervading.
{{/usCountry}}Ask the BDO why people of this area are losing faith in elections, why there is wide-spread underdevelopment and poverty. Pat comes the reply: “What do you expect to see here? An airport? A hospital such as the AIIMS? This is not Kolkata. This a forest area.” An ordinary villager never gets the opportunity to ask the BDO why he must not expect the best. So, he accepts the Naxalite logic that all elections are farce and promises made before polls are never kept.
“No one, no government, no panchayat member and no political party has ever worked for our welfare. Only after the blasts did the government start talking of development. Where were they all these years?” fumed a resident of Laljal in Bhulabheda.
Two months ago, an MCC squad killed Jharkhand Party leader Kamal Mahato at Laljal. The Naxalites suspected him to be a police informer. None in the village came forward to save Mahato. Surprisingly, a day after Mahato’s murder, his wife wrote to the district police superintendent, blaming “police atrocity on innocent villagers” as the cause of her husband’s death.
“Does anybody believe that a rally, a demonstration or even a bandh serves any purpose? Does any political party command respect anymore? The Naxalites are filling the void left by mainstream parties,” said Congress leader Subrata Bhattacharya.