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Sunday 22 January 2012

CPI(ML) Statement - Condemning Conspiracy to Implicate the

Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:43:41 +0530
Subject: CPI(ML) Statement - Condemning Conspiracy to Implicate the
Party in Jharkhand Blast, Demanding Intervention to Secure Release of
Leaders Abducted by Maoists
To:

*CPI(ML) Condemns Conspiracy to Implicate the Party in Jharkhand Blast,*

*Demands Release of Arrested CPI(ML) Activists and *

*Intervention to Secure Release of CPI(ML) Leaders Abducted by Maoists   ***

*  *

*New Delhi, January 22, 2012*

* *

The CPI(ML) strongly condemns the conspiracy being woven by the Jharkhand
police in Garhwa district to falsely implicate the party in a landmine
blast, as a pretext to unleash repression on the party's growing assertion
among rural and adivasi poor.

*The facts are as follows: *

On 21 January 2012, an agitation by local villagers demanding the shifting
of the proposed site of a health centre was being led by elected mukhiya
and CPI(ML) activist Ramdas Minz, at Barga village in Bhandaria block in
Garhwa district. The police arrested Comrade Ramdas Minz during the
agitation, but the protest continued, blockading the road with the demand
that the Bhandaria BDO meet them and address their grievance.

Comrade Sushma Mahto, elected Zila Parishad Chairperson and well-known
local leader of the CPI(ML) was coming from Garhwa by car to the protest
site, along with CPI(ML)'s Jharkhand State Committee member Comrade Akhtar
Ansari, and another Zila Parishad member, an adivasi woman named Hirwanti
Devi.

A land mine blast by Maoists in the same area claimed the lives of several
policemen, though the BDO's car, apparently on the way to meet the
agitating villagers, passed safely. When Comrade Sushma's vehicle
approached the area, the Maoists stopped the car and snatched the gun from
Comrade Sushma's bodyguard. Comrade Sushma, her bodyguard Sunesh Ram,
CPI(ML) State Committee member Comrade Akhtar Ansari, Hirwanti Devi and the
driver of the car, Ahmed, had their hands tied behind their backs, and were
abducted by the Maoists.

*Alarmingly, instead of making efforts to rescue the abducted CPI(ML)
leaders and others, the Jharkhand police are falsely implicating the
CPI(ML) in the landmine blast, alleging that the roadblock and protest were
being held by the party as a ploy to ‘lure’ the policemen into the Maoist
blast. Several of our activists, including Comrade Ramdas Minz, elected
mukhiya from the CPI(ML), are being tortured in police custody. The DGP of
Jharkhand is refusing to acknowledge that Sushma Mahto and other CPI(ML)
leaders have been abducted! *

In Garhwa, the police and local administration have for some time now,
launched an all-out drive to falsely implicate the CPI(ML) leaders and
discredit the party, to crush the growing assertion of the party in the
area. Not long ago, the police raided the home of one leader of the party,
and later claimed to have found fake currency there (without bothering to
produce any evidence by way of seizure documents, etc). The police then, in
a deliberate attempt to tarnish the party's credibility, alleged links of
CPI(ML) leaders with 'ISI'. Similarly this time, the police are making an
outrageous and mischievous attempt to link a peaceful, democratic protest
being led by the party with a landmine blast by Maoists.

It is highly unfortunate that the Maoists' actions have provided fodder for
the police to intensify their repression on people's movements and
democratic struggles. Moreover the Maoists' actions of
abducting/assassinating elected people's representatives, CPI(ML) leaders
and other social activists – as in the case of assassinations of CPI(ML)
MLA Comrade Mahendra Singh, as well as social activist Niyamat Ansari – is
extremely reprehensible. Such actions of targeting and eliminating those
activists who resolutely stand up for the rights of the rural poor, do
immense harm to the cause of people's movements.

We condemn in the strongest terms the attempts to frame and falsely
implicate the CPI(ML). We demand the immediate release of arrested CPI(ML)
activists in Garhwa, and urgently seek the intervention of the Jharkhand
State Government and the Central Government to secure the speedy and safe
release of all those, including CPI(ML) leaders and elected
representatives, abducted by the Maoists.



Prabhat Kumar,

For CPI(ML) Central Committee

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