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West Bengal falsely blaming us: Munda

Belda, West Midnapore, April 6. Coming down heavily on the West Bengal Government, the Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda today said his state is suffering as a fall-out of the Belpahari incident, in which eight people were killed in a landmine blast near Nundhala in Kankrajhore forest last month.

Addressing a press conference in Belda, Mr Munda accused the West Bengal government of side-stepping the main issue and laying the blame on its neighbours. ``The Chief Minister of West Bengal is making our government responsible for inaction in not being able to contain the Naxalite forces.'' he said.

Claiming that his administration has done enough to check the naxalite activities, he said, "We have arrested many zonal commanders and area commanders of the PWG and MCC, who have migrated to our state from here. Jharkhand police have come all the way to Hooghly here and nabbed Naxals and recovered huge arms.''

Reacting to the Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's allegation that Jharkhand is doing nothing to contain divisive forces, resulting in their increased activities in West Bengal, Mr Munda said, ``Still your Chief Minister is raising his finger at us and making us responsible for the growth of divisive forces here.''

``He should have refrained from issuing such statements in newspapers,'' he added.

He called Mr Bhattacharjee for talks to settle the issue amicably. "I invite your Chief Minister after the polls to talks. Though officers of both the states are taking part in such talks at the moment,'' he said.

Landmines unearthed

Jharkhand police have unearthed three landmines and arrested three Naxalite activists in separate drives in Palamu district. Three landmine explosives, weighing 20 kg each, were recovered from beneath the road at Andheridara near Chainpur police station last night, police said today.

Palamu Superintendent of Police, Mungerilal Meena said the landmines were planted for disrupting election activities in the district.

Police arrested two PW activists and one from `Sunlight sena' from Huseinabad and Bisrampur police station areas of state during the day respectively.

-- PTI & UNI

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