Jan. 11: Four CPM supporters were killed when alleged Trinamul Congress activists ambushed them in South 24-Parganas’ Canning today after a row over a madrasah managing committee’s elections.

A CPM group was attacked apparently while walking home through a Trinamul-dominated pocket after party-backed candidates had filed their nominations for the polls to pick guardians’ representatives on the committee.

Police said that a clash ensued at Makaltala, 5km from Canning town and about 35km from Calcutta, with both sides firing bullets and hurling bombs at each other.

The CPM has called a 12-hour bandh in the district on Wednesday to protest the killings. Several areas on the fringes of Calcutta are likely to be affected, though some with Trinamul dominance are likely to be spared (see box).

This morning, a group of Trinamul-backed guardians’ representatives had filed their nominations at Ghutiarisharif Abu Zafaria Senior High Madrasah. The CPM-backed candidates arrived in the afternoon amid allegations that their rivals were trying to dissuade them from contesting.

The area of South 24-Parganas where the clash took place is one the CPM has been holding on to in a district swamped by Trinamul-run rural bodies. Narayanpur gram panchayat, under which Makaltala falls, and its nearby rural bodies are still the Left’s. The local MLA is the CPM’s — land minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah — and the madrasah managing committee has been under the party’s control for 30 years.

But Trinamul has been making inroads into the area since snatching the zilla parishad from the Left in 2008.

The part of Narayanpur where the clash took place is among those where Mamata Banerjee’s party has grown in strength. The Trinamul-backed SUCI candidate was elected MP from the area last May.

The CPM said 11 of its supporters were hit by bullets and bomb splinters. The dead were identified as Dinesh Haldar, Biswanath Gayen, Khairul Zamadar and Selim Zamadar, all aged between 28 and 35.

The seven others were brought to MR Bangur Hospital in Calcutta this evening.

Hospital sources said tonight that bullets had been extracted from six. The seventh person, who has a bullet in his abdomen, was in the operation theatre till late tonight.

Local Trinamul leaders said five of their supporters too were injured. However, police did not confirm the claim. “Four persons have so far been killed and seven injured in the clash. We are finding out from the hospitals in Canning and Baruipur whether some of the injured are still there,” said district police chief L.N. Meena.

Farmer Moinul Haque, 40, said he was inside his house when he heard explosions and gunshots. “It continued for over an hour. When the fight stopped, I opened the window and saw people lying blood-splattered. Local people were arranging for cycle vans to take them to hospital.”

A bullet hit Jahangir Mollah, 28, in his right palm. His uncle Osman said: “My nephew is a grocer and had gone to Canning to buy provisions. He was caught in the clash.”

District CPM leader and former MP Sujan Chakraborty alleged that it was a “pre-planned” Trinamul attack.

District Trinamul president Sovan Chatterjee accused the CPM of triggering the clash. “They know they will lose this election (to be held on January 24).”

In Calcutta, CPM state chief Biman Bose said: “We demand immediate arrest of those who killed our workers.”

School poll death

In Burdwan’s Bhatar, a Trinamul Congress supporter was killed last night and another seriously injured in a clash with CPM activists after the Left lost control of a school managing committee it had held for 20 years.

On all earlier occasions in the past 20 years, CPM candidates had won uncontested at Bonpas Siksha Niketan.