Sheikh Mobaidul (left) at the CPM office in Keshpur during a scrutiny of his nomination papers. Picture by Swarup Mondal

Keshpur, April 18: Manjura Bibi shudders at the mention of Sheikh Mobaidul. The name brings back memories of 2000 when Mobaidul had led a Trinamul Congress gang on bikes, baying for the blood of CPM workers in Keshpur.

A familiar chill ran down the 32-year-old’s spine today when she heard that Mobaidul had won the panchayat poll uncontested, and on a ticket from the party for which her husband had laid down his life.

Mobaidul, who switched sides because the CPM gave him “protection” after Trinamul lost the turf war, was declared winner from Amarchak village under Sharishakhola gram panchayat on Wednesday, the last date for filing nominations for the first two phases.

Now a farmer and a private tutor, Mobaidul is keen to bury his past.

But Manjura and the other women in Gopinathbati village who lost their husbands to Mobaidul’s marauders are not ready to forget or forgive.

“When I heard about Mobaidul’s victory, I was shocked. I remembered the blood-soaked body of my husband lying on the ground as I stood helpless with two children in my arms. I cannot forget that day,” Manjura said.

The CPM and the Trinamul had been locked in a bloody turf battle in West Midnapore’s Keshpur, 160km from Calcutta, between 1998 and 2001.

On April 20, 2000, Trinamul activists surrounded Gopinathbati, a CPM stronghold, and began firing at CPM workers. Manjura’s husband, Sheikh Halim, and two others were killed on the spot.

When fear drove the rest of the men out of the village, the women stepped onto the battleground. Carrying scythes and sickles, they hacked to death five of the assailants who had run out of bullets.

Mobaidul said he had put his life in danger several times for Trinamul. “But after 2001, when the CPM took control of Keshpur, all our leaders fled to Midnapore. They didn’t give us any protection. It was the CPM that protected me. They could have killed me but didn’t.”

The CPM, too, doesn’t want to “dwell on the past”. “Mobaidul realises that he had chosen the wrong path. Today, he is with us,” said Ahmed Ali, secretary of the CPM’s Keshpur zonal committee.

However, Mobaidul’s change of heart cannot melt Manjura’s. “If the party claims he has chosen the right path, so be it. But how can I forget that fateful day eight years ago? It will not be easy to forgive him,” she said.