Four held for Maoist links in West Bengal

KOLKATA - Four people have been arrested in West Bengal’s West Midnapore district for allegedly running a medical camp for the Maoists, police said Wednesday.

The accused, nabbed from the Majherkata forest near Salboni Tuesday night, were brought before the Midnapore district court and remanded to 14 days’ judicial custody Wednesday, said Aneesh Sarkar, deputy superintendent of police.

The four - Khogen Mahato, Dinabandhu Murmu, Rohini Mahato and Ganesh Mahato - are all known to be members of the tribal group Peoples’ Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), police said.

“Khogen Mahato and Dinabandhu Murmu are active members of the PCPA, the frontal organisation of the Maoists. They were earlier booked in several cases,” he said.

Sarkar said they were arrested for running a health camp within the forest area for treating the Maoists. Medicines worth Rs.1.5 lakh and a few packets of bandages were recovered from the camp.

“As such type of a medical camp does not have any legal validity, the camp was also dismantled. We have seized several packets of medicines and bandages,” said Sarkar.

A senior police officer said the four accused were responsible for holding the medical camp in Majherkata forest, where some Maoists cadres underwent treatment in the past few days.

The officer also revealed that city-based professors and intellectuals arrested June 16 for alleged links with the Maoists, were said to have visited the medical camp.

They have also supplied medicines and money to the local PCAPA leaders for running the camp.

“The team of intellectuals along with the spokesperson of PCAPA Manoj Mahato and other senior leaders met a few top leaders of Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) and also attended their kangaroo court,” said another senior police officer in West Midnapore.