The incidents last Sunday and Monday when he was taken away from the Howrah railway station by self-claimed Central Intelligence personnel were a clear case of abduction and illegal detention, K.N. Ramachandran, general secretary, CPI(ML) Red Star, has said.
He was released on Monday evening and put on the Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express with a warning not to return. Mr. Ramachandran, who arrived in New Delhi by noon, was speaking to The Hindu over the telephone.
Giving an account of the happenings on the two days, he said he reached the railway station by 5.05 p.m. on Sunday and called his friend to inform of his arrival. He had gone to Kolkata to address a press conference and meet members of the family of the two slain activists who were part of a struggle against the power grid at Banghar in South 24 Parganas, as his party was leading the struggle.
“Suddenly five or six well-built men took me, closed my mouth, blind-folded me and put me in a vehicle. They then took me to a building some distance away and started questioning,” he said. They took my mobile phone and said they were from the Central Intelligence.
“They alleged that we were in league with Maoists but I explained that we were building the movement keeping both the CPI(M) and CPI (Maoist) away. I pointed out that the agitation was progressing as a peaceful movement till the police and goondas attacked women and villagers, resulting in a police firing. I said that the Committee to Save Land, Livelihood and Environment, spearheading the struggle, was a broad forum of all struggling Left and democratic forces in which students, women, intellectuals and scientists were participating,’’ he said.
On Monday, he was again blindfolded and taken out of the building. Someone who introduced himself as the State chief of the Central Intelligence arranged a ticket for the Rajdhani Express to Delhi. They opened his eyes and put him on the train at the Durgapur railway station.
He said the whole episode of kidnapping and illegal detention of the general secretary of a party which is working openly at the all-India level was nothing but an act of fascism and a reflection of what was happening at Banghar and reminder that Singur and Nadigram would be repeated.
“Such terror tactics will only strengthen the people’s will to fight and we will take our agitation further,” Mr. Ramchandran said.
