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Tribals call off stir in Paschim Medinipur

KOLKATA: The agitation by a section of the tribal population against alleged police excesses, which had resulted in parts of West Bengal’s Paschim Medinipur district being virtually cut off, was called off on Sunday after more than four weeks.

The decided to call off the agitation was arrived at by leaders of the “people’s committee” after a meeting lasting more than three hours with officials of the district administration at the local thana in Lalgarh — an area from where the stir spread to other parts of the district’s Jhargram sub-division and even spilled over to areas in adjoining Bankura district.

The district authorities assured the agitators that necessary action will be taken against the policemen found guilty in the course of an inquiry into the excesses that the protestors claim was committed on local villagers during raids to track down those responsible for the IED blast that narrowly missed Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s convoy on November 2.

The leaders of the agitation were also told that the government will adequately compensate any person found to have suffered because of previous police action.

“It was also decided that the police will continue patrolling the villages, but no undue action will be taken against the innocent,” district magistrate N.S. Nigam told The Hindu over telephone from Medinipur.

It now remains to be seen how soon the roadblocks put up by the protestors over the past few weeks at various places in the region are removed.

Also, dug up roads in Jhargram sub-division need to be repaired.

“We are hopeful that the process of restoring normality in the areas that have been affected for a month will begin tomorrow,” Mr Nigam added.

That the leaders of the agitation were under growing pressure from the local people — already badly hit by truncated supplies of ration and kerosene — to call off their protests was evident in their agreeing to a meeting with the district authorities at Lalgarh after climbing down from their demand that the venue for talks should be Dalilpur, where the first protests against alleged police excesses was raised.

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