Malda, April 20: The CPM has failed to field a single candidate in the Naoda-Jadupur gram panchayat and the Congress is now set to capture all the 17 seats without much competition. The Left party has accused the Congress of using “antisocial elements” to drive out its leaders, many of whom have also been murdered.
The last date for filing nominations for the panchayat elections scheduled for next month got over yesterday.
The gram panchayat was under CPM control till 1998. In 2003, the Congress won 17 seats of the 22 seats and the CPM five. (This time, after delimitation, the number of seats has been reduced to 17)
“There will be a law and order situation if we field anyone in Naoda-Jadupur as attempts would be made to drive them out again. Many leaders and workers of our party have either been murdered by anti-socials sheltered by the Congress or forced to flee the area,” said CPM district secretary Jiban Moitra. He said there have been several failed attempts to get the police to arrest these “criminals”.
Back in Jadupur, a 70-year-old silk trader, Boduruddin Ahmed, said five years ago, when the CPM was in power, “the panchayat area witnessed murder and violence almost every alternate days”.
“Now that they (the CPM) have gone, it is peaceful. We don’t want them to come back,” Ahmed said.
Abdul Rauf, the former secretary of the Kaliachak zonal committee of the CPM, and his wife, Shefali Khatun, who was the zilla parishad sabhadhipati in 1998-2003, are living in Kaliachak town now.
“The gram panchayat was with the CPM but they started interfering in family disputes and then began resorting to violence. That is why the people rejected them,” said Abdul Malek, the Congress upa-pradhan of Naoda-Jadupur.
Residents of the area said in the past four years six persons (see chart) were killed in daylight and none of the assailants have been arrested.
Congress MLA from Kaliachak and district president of the party Ruby Noor said it was not her party’s lookout who failed to file nominations. “The CPM is being paid back in its own coin,” she said.
District magistrate Chittaranjan Das said there was no law and order problem in the area. “We have not received any complaints from any quarters to the contrary, but the police are vigilant and we are trying our best to make the panchayat polls incident-free,” Das said.
Violence Watch
• January 17, 2005: Ala Sheikh (CPM), Afzal Hossain (Cong) murdered
• February 21, 2005: Abu Ayesh (CPM) murdered
• March 19, 2005: Iyaz Ahmed, a Pakistani “company commander” of Al Badr, a militant outfit, arrested
• April 4, 2005: Bombs thrown at CPM zilla parishad member Abdur Rauf’s house
• November 24, 2007:Saifuddin Sheikh (Cong) murdered
• January 7, 2008: Rafikul Sheikh (Cong), Azad Ali (CPM) murdered
All the murders were committed during the day. Victims were either shot or hacked to death
