BENGAL: LF slammed for state turmoil
Posted by barunroy on January 8, 2009
FROM THE STATESMAN
Siliguri, Jan. 7: Several political leaders, including those of the Opposition Trinamul Congress and the Congress, slammed the state government for “keeping police in limbo while separatist forces are desperately targeting the unity of West Bengal.”
This criticism of the state government has assumed significance in view of the reported discontent in the higher echelons of the north Bengal police force in the wake of the state’s repeated “neutralising” intervention in tackling the growing cult of political violence in the region, particularly in the strife-torn Darjeeling district. There are indications that discontent is percolating down the line, resulting in “fast setting demoralisation in the police force” in the sensitive region.
Topping the list, the state PWD minister, Mr Kshiti Goswami, said that the state government should have the modicum of discrimination in differentiating between tolerance shown to the cause behind a people’s movement and the cult of violence often overshadowing the cause. “As far as the Darjeeling impasse is concerned my party fully supports the softness the state government has been showing to the statehood movement. Yet, when a cult of violence tends to usurp ascendancy in the name of a political cause, the government cannot remain an idle spectator. Unfortunately this is what is happening in Darjeeling,” the minister remarked.
Taking a dig at the state government and its police, the leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly Mr Partha Chatterjee said that a major section of the state police had sold its conscience to the ruling party’s bossy satraps. “They have allowed themselves to be thoroughly politicised for the sake of the left overs of government favours. The real malady behind the so-called demoralisation of the Darjeeling district police force is here,” he said.
Going a step further in the stinging criticism, senior state Congress leader Mr Subrata Mukherjee said that the Left Front government was driving the state to the brink of a sanguinary civil war. “The sinister intention reveals itself through its conspicuous inaction in the face of the growing momentum of fissiparous anti-state movements. The politicised police force of the north Bengal region is being kept in a paralysed state to help anarchy,” he alleged.
On the other hand, defending the state government in the context of the reported discontent in the police force in north Bengal, the FB and the CPI leadership said that the strategy of the state government regarding a tricky problem should be held supreme by the bureaucracy.
“If there is any personal grievance, the police officials should approach the proper forums instead of venting it in the media. If such a thing has happened in the sensitive north Bengal region it should be considered a bad precedent not worthy to be emulated,” said the FB national secretary, Mr Dedabrata Biswas, and CPI state secretary Mr Manju Kumar Majumder.
