The Hindu : Pre-poll violence claims another victim in Bengal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 11, 2003

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Pre-poll violence claims another victim in Bengal

By Our Special Correspondent

KOLKATA APRIL 10. The panchayat elections in West Bengal slated for May 11 may not be violence-free with the ruling Leftists and the Opposition Trinamool Congress increasingly getting involved in bloody clashes.

The pre-poll violence claimed a second victim on Wednesday night when a gram panchayat member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was killed in Nandigram area of east Midnapore district.

Police said the body of Jyoiti Das (30), a CPI(M) panchayat member of Birulia village, was found in a field. Das most likely would not have contested the polls this time as his seat has been reserved for women. His wife was supposed to contest from the seat. Party functionaries alleged that Das had been strangulated and that his murder was a political one. The party has called for a bandh in Nandigram tomorrow.

Only a few days ago, Mathur Shee, a CPI (M) panchayat samiti nominee of Khanakul in Hooghly district, was killed and Subrata Doloi, a gram panchayat member of Chingra, in the same district was critically injured when a group of miscreants attacked him.

The CPI (M) called a 24-hour bandh in Khanakul on Wednesday to protest the killing of Mathur Shee. The party mouthpiece, "Ganasakti", today alleged that the Trinamool Congress had drawn up a blueprint to attack the Leftist nominees, especially those of the CPI (M) in Hooghly before the polls.

"We have information that the CPI(M) has hatched a conspiracy to kill some of our MLAs," the Trinamool chief, Mamata Banerjee, said on Wednesday. That tension is mounting by the day became evident when the CPI(M) state secretary, Anil Biswas, charged the Trinamool with trying to unleash terror in rural Bengal to resist the communists.

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