Beggars and mentally challenged persons in Jangalmahal in West Bengal have become the unwitting targets of Maoists - an unlikely fallout of the recent successes against the extremists by security forces.
In the last four months more than 30 beggars and mentally challenged persons in and around Lalgarh and Salboni area in West Midnapore district alone had been killed, leaving the district administration rattled.
Baffled by how information of their secret hide-outs deep in the jungles is reaching joint forces, Maoists suspect the beggars and vagabonds in the area to be the informants.
Jhargram’s Superintendent of Police Praveen Tripathi told PTI that over last four months 12 persons from Salboni, 10 from Belpahari, five from Lalgarh and as many from Nayagram who are mostly beggars, vagabonds and mentally challenged have gone missing.
Bodies of some of those persons have been found from far-off places.
“Most of the bodies found, either bore bullet marks or marks of heavy weapons like stones or rifle butts which caused their death,” Mr. Tripathi said.
It was possible, that even homeless people, whose total population was impossible to ascertain, have met similar fate, the SP said.
“The Maoists are possibly doing it because they fear that street dwellers have been passing on information to the police. They are just picked up from the streets and finished off,” he said.
On whether security can be provided to the homeless, Mr. Tripathi said it was extremely hard to keep tab on their movement. “We are trying to rope in some NGOs who can make some arrangement for shelter.”
West Midnapore Superintendent of Police Manoj Verma said the district administration had been asked to devise ways to rehabilitate the homeless.
An officer of the joint forces said as most of the beggars and the mentally challenged are outsiders, they become easy suspects and even threats in the eyes of the ultras.
District social welfare officer Mossaraf Hosain said there is no official estimate of the people living in the streets and at a recent meeting with top police officials of the district it was decided that the security forces would identify and rescue them from Maoist-affected areas.
The joint forces have already initiated the process of identifying such people in Lalgarh-Jhargram belt and a rescue operation will start in full swing once the administration makes alternative arrangements for their shelter, he said.
