Flags in hand, Monindra Roy ran for dear life — not his own but that of a Forward Bloc comrade who had been hit by a police bullet on Tuesday. Roy, who was part of the Bloc law-violation programme, carried the injured man to hospital, about 200 metres from the Dinhata subdivisional office — the site of the mayhem. But he did not survive. Roy’s efforts, however, did not go unnoticed. A youth caught the action on a camcorder (grab on left). The 33-year-old farmer said he had stooped to collect flags lying on the ground as bullets whizzed past him. “Then I heard someone yell. An aged man, wearing dhuti-panjabi, collapsed before me as blood oozed out of his chest. I ran towards him and picked him up. With the flags still in my hand, I carried the man out of the campus. I saw many people groaning in pain while the policemen kept firing.”

Siliguri, Feb. 7: The Forward Block put up two faces today.

The Dinhata brigade bellowed against the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government for Tuesday’s police firing that left six dead, but colleagues in Calcutta kept their lips sealed.

Udayan Guha, the Dinhata Bloc secretary who has been catapulted to the forefront in the district, said Tuesday’s “barbaric” incident would be highlighted at all party meetings from now on.

He said the Bloc would not buckle under the “might of the government”, which had tried to “crush the Forward Bloc’s efforts to raise common peoples’ issues”.

But leaders in Calcutta, who had yesterday cut short their bandh and refused to criticise the chief minister, were silent on the firing, confining themselves to the refrain that the matter would be discussed at the next Left Front meeting.

They appeared keen to distance themselves from Guha’s aggressive brand of politics — in evidence since Tuesday’s law-violation programme and in its aftermath.

Guha dismissed suggestions by the CPM that “antisocials” had mingled with the procession that had stormed the subdivisional office in Dinhata, which triggered the police firing.

“There was not a single antisocial in the rally. They were all our supporters. The CPM leaders should prove their point,” he said.

In Calcutta, the Bloc leaders took pains to ensure that they did not lay the blame on the government — but only on the police — for the deaths. Guha, however, was in no mood for such benevolence.

“We have been fighting the CPM-led government on some major issues. After Tuesday’s incident, we doubt how much unity can be maintained in the Left Front. Our workers at the grassroots level view the CPM as any other opposition party.”

Some Bloc leaders in Dinhata admitted that the sympathy generated by Tuesday’s firing would “benefit” the party.

“It is not a very pleasant thing to say given the enormity of the tragedy, but the deaths will definitely help us in the panchayat polls,” a leader said. “It has pumped up our workers and made us more aggressive in our anti-CPM stance.”

Dinhata limped to normality today with shops and offices re-opening and children trooping back to school.

However, tension hung heavy over the town and nearby areas, especially villages which lost residents to the police bullets. “We are not going to sleep till justice is done,” said a Bloc supporter from Sitai.