The Hindu : Front Page : Four AIFB supporters die in police firing

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Wednesday, Feb 06, 2008
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Four AIFB supporters die in police firing

Special Correspondent

KOLKATA: Four persons, stated to be supporters of the All India Forward Bloc — a constituent of the ruling Left Front in West Bengal, were killed and several others injured at Dinhata in the State’s Cooch Behar district when police fired on a mob that attacked the office of the sub-divisional officer on Tuesday.

The incident occurred when AIFB supporters turned violent during a State-wide law violation programme organised by the party in support of its demand for proper implementation of the National Rural Employment Programme, among other issues.

They attacked the SDO’s office and set a police vehicle on fire. When a baton-charge failed to disperse the mob, the police burst tear gas shells and opened fire, the State’s Inspector General of Police (Law and Order), Raj Kanojia, said. A few policemen were also injured in the violence.

The State leadership of the AIFB has called a 24-hour State bandh on Wednesday to protest the police firing that, it claimed, was aimed at peaceful demonstrators. The Trinamool Congress has supported the bandh. The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party announced their “moral support” to it.

Leaders of two major Left Front constituents — the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Communist Party of India — have condemned the police firing.

The State Committee of the CPI(M), in a statement, said the AIFB law violation programme was not “totally peaceful.”

AIFB’s reaction

“The incident has hampered the image of Left unity across the country and is contrary to the commitments made by constituents of the Left Front of not using the police against any democratic movement,” Debabrata Biswas, the AIFB general secretary, told The Hindu from Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh.

The party’s State Secretary, Ashok Ghosh, singled out the CPI(M) for perpetuating “one-party rule in the name of the Left Front for some time now.”

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