Bloc workers being taken to a Dinhata court. Picture by Main Uddin Chisti

Dinhata, Feb. 20: The Forward Bloc is planning to host a grand reception for its 40 supporters who will be released from jail soon. The workers, arrested in connection with the February 5 violence here, had secured bail from Calcutta High Court yesterday.

“We want to boost the morale of our workers who have been in jail since the February 5 police firing. We also want to send a message to the people in the district as well as across Bengal that these men are brave fighters,” said a member of the Bloc’s state secretariat here today. Five Bloc workers had lost their lives in the police firing.

“We are going to felicitate the workers when they are released from jail either tomorrow or the day after. We will take them to the party office in a procession and hold public meetings,” said party’s Cooch Behar West MLA Akshay Thakur.

Hiralal Das, a senior Bloc leader of Dinhata, said the CPM had spread rumours that the jailed workers would not be granted bail and their fate would be similar to that of Greater Cooch Behar People’s Party leader, Bangshibadan Barman, and his supporters who had been languishing in jail since September 20, 2006.

Barman was arrested after the 2006 Assembly elections and implicated in a case in which he was accused of beating to death a police officer and two constables.

Bloc district secretary Aden Joho said the families of the jailed party members would also be honoured. He added that they would be taken home in bedecked vehicles.

Another party leader, Ripen Roy, said the CPM would have to pay for the lives of their five supporters.