Sisir Das with his niece at his Malda home on Wednesday. Picture by Surajit Roy

Malda, Nov. 19: Sisir Das, the additional police superintendent who had put in his papers last Monday while on duty at Lalgarh, West Midnapore, said here today he had taken the step after he failed to convince his superiors about the ground realities there.

Lalgarh tribals cut of the roads into their area following what they termed forcible detention of innocent men and children following the November 9 blast in the area triggered by the Maoists right after the convoy of chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and union steel minister, Ramvilas Paswan’s convoy had passed after the inauguration of the Jindal Steel plant at Salboni.

Das had alighted from the Gour Express from Sealdah today at 6.20am and took a cycle-rickshaw back his home at Malanchapally, 2km away.

Sitting at home, Das was reluctant to say whether he had resigned from the force for fear of tackling the Maoists in the forests of Lalgarh or because of the treatment meted out to him by his seniors. As soon as the tribals of Lalgarh began the blockade, Das who was the additional police superintendent (headquarters), North 24-Parganas, was transferred to Lalgarh on November 8. He was ordered to take charge of the police camp at Kalaimuri there for two days.

However, despite being asked to stay for two days officially, he had to spend five days at the camp. After that he got in touch with the police superintendent of West Midnapore, Rajesh Singh. He said Singh ordered him to move inside the forest about two kilometres into an areas called Pirkata and establish a camp there.

“I had agreed to move to Pirkata, but I had just wanted to move with the men in the daytime as the area was unknown to us,” Das said. He said there was every possibility of the route through the forest being set with land mines by the Maoists. He had felt that unless it was ensured that the area was not strewn with the mines, it would have been suicidal to move blindly at night.

He had only one proposal; that the route the police would take should be sanitised first. However, Das said his mistake was that he had failed to convince his superiors about the ground realities. He added that he had to tolerate “whips” and bad behaviour from his seniors, which he could not take any longer.

“I have resigned and I have not yet decided on what to do next,” Das said.